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Inevitably. Bronston's epic has its embarrassments. El Cid himself, too crudely contemporized, seems less the scourge of the heathen than a champion of civil rights. And there are moments when Hero Heston looks as though he needs a derrick to help him with that broadsword. Nevertheless, Director Anthony Mann has managed his immense material with firmness, elegance, and a sure sense of burly epic rhythm. That rhythm and the wondrous naive mood of epopee are supported further by Scenarist Yordan's fine perception that epic episodes are essentially isolated experiences, that the spectator seldom really requires the laborious convenience of continuity. As Yordan has written his scenes in El Cid, the best of them come forward with oafish innocence and charm, almost like stanzas of the old poema itself.