12 Spectacular films

I had this large format spiral bound book "SPECTACULAR! The Story of Epic Films" by John Cary and John Kobal, in 1974, but somehow lost it over the years, so I was pleased to find one cheap online. This would be expensive to produce now, with all those fold-out double page scenes from epic films. It covers it all from the silent days up to the glory Fifties and Sixties era, with special chapters like Robert Wise discussing the making of HELEN OF TROY. Fascinating stuff - it got me list my own dozen Top Spectaculars.

• THE SIGN OF THE CROSS - Cecil B De Mille, 1932
• QUO VADIS? - Mervyn Le Roy, 1951
• HELEN OF TROY - Robert Wise, 1955 
• ALEXANDER THE GREAT - Robert Rossen, 1956
• THE TEN COMMANDMENTS - Cecil B De Mille, 1956
• THE VIKINGS - Richard Fleischer, 1958
• BEN HUR - William Wyler, 1959 (with stunt help from Andrew Morton and Yakima Canutt)
• SPARTACUS - Stanley Kubrick, 1960
• EL CID - Anthony Mann, 1961
• CLEOPATRA - Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1963
• THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE - Anthony Mann, 1964
• ALEXANDER - Oliver Stone, 2004.

And of course LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. 
Special mention to: THE EGYPTIAN, THE PRODIGAL, THE SILVER CHALICE, LAND OF THE PHAROAHS, SIGN OF THE PAGAN, ATTILA, DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS, 55 DAYS AT PEKING, KING OF KINGS, BARABBAS, GENGHIS KHAN, SODOM AND GOMORRAH, THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES, ATLANTIS THE LOST CONTINENT, FABIOLA, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, THE GIANT OF MARATHON, APHRODITE and all those other Steve Reeve and Belinda Lee peplums, and Visconti's THE LEOPARD, 
A big NO to those CGI items like TROY or even GLADIATOR ! 

Lots on all these at Epics, Peplums labels. 

Coming up: 12 Bad Movies We Love; 12 European 1960s films.