The 300 Spartans (1962)

Director:

Rudolph Maté

Writers:

Gian Paolo Callegari (original story material)
Remigio Del Grosso (original story material)

Release Date:

August 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | History | War

Plot:

Essentially true story of how Spartan king Leonidas led an extremely small army of Greek Soldiers (300...

Plot Keywords:

Persian | Greece | Spartan | Soldier | Warrior

Cast

Richard Egan	...	King Leonidas
Ralph Richardson	...	Themistocles of Athens (as Sir Ralph Richardson)
Diane Baker	...	Ellas
Barry Coe	...	Phylon
David Farrar	...	Xerxes
Donald Houston	...	Hydarnes
Anna Synodinou	...	Gorgo
Kieron Moore	...	Ephialtes
John Crawford	...	Agathon the Spartan Spy
Robert Brown	...	Pentheus
Laurence Naismith	...	First Delegate
Anne Wakefield	...	Artemisa
Ivan Triesault	...	Demaratus
Charles Fawcett	...	Megistias
Michalis Nikolinakos	...	Myron (as Michael Nikolinakos)

Also Known As:

Lion of Sparta

Runtime:

114 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate #29936) | Australia:G | West Germany:12 (nf) | Malaysia:U (DVD) | Singapore:PG | Germany:12 (DVD rating) | Finland:K-12 | UK:PG | UK:U (cut)

Filming Locations:

Athens, Greece

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The photos of ancient Greek ruins used during the main credits are directly comparable with the paintings used during the main credits of The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Goofs:

Errors in geography: When the Persian army is into Greece where they will meet the Spartans, they are marching between mountains on their left, and water on their right. In actuality, the Persians were marching south along the eastern edge of Greece, so the water would have been on their left with mountains on their right. The way the movie portrays it, the Persians are marching out of Greece.

Quotes:

Themistocles of Athens: Truth is a heady wine. A politician must never exaggerate people's capacity for it.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Watchmen (2009)

My favorite all time movie

I saw this movie when it first came out in 1962, I believe, when I was just a kid and it is still one of my favorite movies of all time. As I got older there were a few mistakes in it that I noticed. One was, someone in the movie said that the Spartans fight like Machines. I don't think that the word machines or machines in general were invented then. I could be wrong though. A few other flaws but in my judgement it is one the finest army action fighting movies.Reading history books about the Persian wars it seems quite accurate.