Man of La Mancha [Blu-ray]

Director: Arthur Hiller, Arthur Miller Arthur Hiller

Overview

Dale Wasserman's long-running Broadway smash comes to the screen in this musical based on Miguel de Cervantes' classic satire Don Quixote de la Mancha. Cervantes (Peter O'Toole) is arrested and put in prison by the soldiers of the Spanish Inquisition after staging a comic performance which mocked the Spanish government. Cervantes' fellow inmates are eager to divvy up his belongings, but the author is desperate to save a manuscript of his latest work; in order to win the prisoners over, he stages, with their assistance, his latest comedy about the delusional knight Don Quixote (O'Toole). Don Quixote, with the help of his loyal manservant Sancho Panza (James Coco), is determined to battle evil, though he most often finds himself combating windmills. Don Quixote encounters the beautiful virgin Dulcinea -- personified by a jailed prostitute, Aldonza (Sophia Loren) -- and is certain he has found the love of his life. However, tragedy befalls Don Quixote when a band of savages rape Dulcinea as he sleeps, and he must decide where his greatest loyalty lies when his niece Antonia (Julie Gregg) arrives, asking Quixote to please return home to his family. In a move which was widely criticized at the time of the film's release, Peter O'Toole's singing voice was dubbed for most of his musical numbers, while Sophia Loren did all of her own vocal tracks.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/25/2017
UPC:	0826663174731
Original Release:	1972
Rating:	PG
Source:	Shout Factory
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	2:09:00
Sales rank:	5,755

Special Features

Vintage Featurette; Theatrical Trailer; Photo Montage with Overture Music

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Peter O'Toole	Miguel de Cervantes/Don Quixote/Alonso Quijana
Sophia Loren	Dulcinea/Aldonza
James Coco	Sancho Panza
Harry Andrews	Governor/Innkeeper
John Castle	Duke/Dr. Carrasco/Black Knight
Brian Blessed	Pedro
Ian Richardson	Padre
Julie Gregg	Antonia
Gino Conforti	Barber
Rosalie Crutchley	Housekeeper
Marne Maitland	Captain of the Guard
Dorothy Sinclair	Maria/Innkeeper's Wife
Miriam Acevedo	Fermina
Dominic Barto	Muleteer
Poldo Bendandi	Muleteer
Peppi Borza	Muleteer
Mario Donen	Muleteer
Teddy Green	Muleteer
Peter Johnston	Muleteer
Roy Jones	Muleteer
Connel Miles	Muleteer
Rolando De Santis	Muleteer
Mirror	Actor
Laurence Rosenthal	Composer
Mitch Leigh	Composer

Technical Credits

Dale Wasserman

Arthur Hiller	Director,Producer
Alberto Grimaldi	Executive Producer,Producer
Adriano Pischiutta	Special Effects
Dale Wasserman	Screenwriter
Saul Chaplin	Producer
David Hildyard	Sound/Sound Designer
Richard Portman	Sound/Sound Designer
Arthur Miller	Director

Editorial Reviews

Flamboyantly charismatic Peter O'Toole lights up the screen in this offbeat but colorful adaptation of the 1965 stage musical adapted from Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. O'Toole tackles a dual role, playing both Cervantes and his classic character with style and verve. He's delightful as Quixote, the 17th-century Spaniard afflicted with a dementia that makes him think he's a medieval knight, duty-bound to uphold the age of chivalry and vanquish evildoers. James Coco plays his loyal sidekick, Sancho Panza, and a seriously miscast Sophia Loren struggles valiantly with the role of Dulcinea, the peasant woman whom Quixote would champion. Director Arthur Hiller doesn't concern himself overly with the original show's "book," written by Dale Wasserman; instead, he makes the film a vehicle for the Mitch Leigh-Joe Darion music. O'Toole, of course, gets all the memorable numbers (including that beloved standard "The Impossible Dream") and performs them in grand manner, even though his singing is dubbed by British actor-singer Simon Gilbert. Man of La Mancha excels in other areas, too: sets, costumes, photography, and choreography are all first-rate. But the dynamic O'Toole is the glue that holds the whole film together, and it would be worth owning if only for his marvelous performance.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

Adapting a literary masterpiece for film is a formidable challenge for directors and producers. But what if the classic work is a 17th century Spanish novel, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote de la Mancha, being adapted for a modern English-speaking audience? And what if the filmmakers are adapting their script from a Broadway musical, Dale Wasserman's Man of La Mancha, loosely based on the original Cervantes work? The result, in the case of director Arthur Hiller's film about demented idealist Quixote, is an adventure into the bizarre. Here is a motion picture in which the great dramatic actor Peter O'Toole (Quixote) is reduced to lip-synching the Mitch Leigh-Joe Darian song "The Impossible Dream." Even worse, here is a film in which Sophia Loren (Dulcinea) sings in her own voice. Though the story is set in Spain, the motion picture unfolds in Italy with English and American actors in the main roles of Quixote and his feather-brained sidekick Sancho Panza (James Coco). What's more, though the film is in widescreen format with color by Deluxe, a combination that invites spectacular imagery, the costumes resemble garage-sale leftovers, and the setting for half the film looks like a dark and dingy dungeon. (In fact, it is a dungeon.) As for the main purpose of the Cervantes book -- to lampoon other writers who dwell nostalgically on the age of knight-errantry -- one may find traces of it when O'Toole falls off a horse or jousts with a windmill. Surprisingly, it is possible to sit through this film. O'Toole is good when he's doing what he was cut out to do: recite lines, not sing them. And Coco is sometimes endearingly cuckoo. Then there is the music score, which was nominated for an Academy Award. So what we have in Hiller's Man of La Mancha is a bad film with good moments -- or, in the opinion of a few brave critics, a good film with bad moments.

All Movie Guide - Mike Cummings