Triumph of the Will (1935)

Leni Riefenstahl's documentary epic was Germany's message to Germans and the world that the Motherland was standing tall. The occasion was the first Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, and its star descending through clouds like a Teutonic god was Adolf Hitler. The movie was meant to deify him, and with a mystic fervor quite unlike anything else ever put on film, it almost succeeds. This is moviemaking to change the world, and many claim that it did. Dozens of cameras capture the torch-lit processions in images that have become infamous, but still exert a spell. The swastika- bedecked banners rise above the adoring faces of the all-too-willing-to-be-led, and the hysteria mounts ecstatically as the sabre-rattling rhetoric rolls on and Riefenstahl's great communicator simultaneously harangues and transfixes his Volk. Patriotism whips itself to a frenzied fever that would ignite a continent and a world, where embers still glow.

It is impossible to separate this film from what we know historically half a century later, and the passions it arouses can be as irrational as those up on the screen. Riefenstahl's Triumph is the triumph of technique, of hidden persuasion, of image. Those are not petty or pretty skills and they served no petty or pretty purpose. Triumph of the Will was perhaps the first hurrah of the political Star, but certainly not the last, and should remind us that the power of film to transport can be dangerous, deceptive, lethal. Black depths still lurk among those stars.I doubt that Triumph of the Will had a budget, or hovering accountants. But considering where the scenario led, it is surely the costliest film in history to date. It is a great, great documentary, and an even greater warning.

The Scarlet Empress (1934)

This side of  Triple-X, erotic epics are rare, as are epics centered on female figures, which goes a long way to explain the former. Aside from Cleopatra, history's epic ladies have been mostly ostentatiously virginal Queen Elizabeth or else they've been Catherine the Great, who was anything but. It must have seemed a good idea to the guys in Paramount's front office to cast Dietrich as Catherine and let Josef von Sternberg's well-known slyness with a camera put one over on the Hays Office. The result, Lubitsch  almost sank Paramount but it wasn't so much that the picture went over budget as it was that the public was under whelmed and Dietrich seemed under hypnosis.

Sternberg photographed her through veils curtains, nets, filigrees, statuary groups, bales of  hay, and keyholes, in what amounted to an epic tease: maddeningly frustrating foreplay without a single leg shot! It infuriated critics and bewildered audiences, including Will Hays, who apparently didn't get it, for some of the imagery is enough to wig anybody out. Sternberg drenches Dietrich in eroticism and makes clear that Catherine's interest in the Imperial Horse Guards is not strictly equestrian.

Gone With the Wind (1938)

Few observers point out that Gone With the Wind is a movie about losers. Nobody gets what they wants. Not Rhett. Not Scarlett. Not Ashley. Not Melanie. Not even MGM, which has been trying for decades to come up with a GWTW II acceptable to Margaret Mitchell and all she got was fame she didn't want and run over by a car. Nor did Selznick, for whom the movie was not only the peak of  his career, but its curse, not because he couldn't top it, but because he thought he had to and there lay Tara infirma.

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Mike Todd's answer to P. T. Barnum is one of the few epic comedies ever made, and the only one in which the balloon  isn't made of  lead. The spot the stars casting is still a treat for trivia and celebrity buffs; Jules Verne's story is niftily told and the picture achieves a genuine sense of play. It has wit, sentiment, and some enchantment. The budget remains mysterious. Todd solved the problem of superstar salaries by encouraging all his pals to do it for fun. Sinatra did it for the fun of a Rolls, Dietrich for the fun of sables. What fun the IRS had sorting it out is unrecorded, though the rumor around Hollywood was that Sinatra's agent got a hubcap.

Cleopatra (1963)

Joe Mankiewicz knew better: He'd been to ancient Rome before. The first time, he traveled with Marlon Brando (Antony) and Louis Calhern (Caesar), with a script  marked W. Shakespeare. He shot Julius Caesar in black and white, and it was far better than anyone expected. His second visit had more complicated baggage, including  Elizabeth Taylor as the Serpent of the Nile, slithering between Rex Harrison (Caesar) and Richard Burton ( Antony) and resulted in something far better than anyone expected.Cleopatra is probably still the most expensive film, dollar for adjusted dollar, ever made by Hollywood. They closed down Twentieth Century-Fox so it could lurch less heavily over the brink of  bankruptcy, fired everybody, and reinstalled as chairman a large cigar with Darryl Zanuck wrapped around it. The upshot of all these Barnum and Bailey antics is that Cleopatra turned out to be more fun than a barrel of apes. The real winner was Joe, tipping us off to all this spectacle drenched nonsense. Age cannot wither Cleopatra's infinite vulgarity.  It still remains the most voluptuous hog wallow in Hollywood history.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

David Lean's biography of  T.E. Lawrence is often called the first satisfying epic. With its  photo- graphy, production, action and rendering of its hero .Peter O'Toole played his first screen role in Arab mufti.  The budget got mirage like, too, as shooting days on Lawrence became more numberless than the desert sands. The story goes that producer Sam Spiegel desperate but cunning had himself strapped to a stretcher and flown by Red Cross helicopter to the desert location. There, attendants carried him to the dismayed Lean's side, where Spiegel croaked up, ``Don't worry about anything, David not the budget, not the schedule, not my health. The picture the picture is all that counts!" Where upon he was whisked back into the helicopter, which vanished into blazing desert skies.Whether this reverse psychology worked is unknown, but Lean finished the picture, and not the other way around.

The Godfather Saga (1977)

A  family saga, intense as an opera. Coppola set a new standard for audiences and for filmmakers of  his generation. It's amazing that Coppola had it with the studio watching his every move with his studio's ass-director ready to step in at any moment.