Critics reviews

The film remains gripping and fascinating to me for some of its performances (pace Michel Mourlet, for me Burl Ives and Jean Simmons are “axioms” far more than is Heston) and for carrying Wyler’s Bazinian passion for deep focus to cosmic proportions in those wide-open spaces.

It was one of the films that gave Wyler a reputation for torpid bloat, but these days its pictorial magnificence — Wyler demanded locations for this tale of the American West that looked untouched by civilization — its great cast, and its evident Cold War allegory make the film more absorbing in many ways than the far more celebrated Ben-Hur (1959).

Wyler paints the West like he knew that no one had seen it look quite this spectacular, and his cast simmer like frying eggs under the sprawling sky and their insurmountable blood hatred. It's the Seven Samurai of westerns (more so than that film's plodding remake The Magnificent Seven) and it uses the sheer power of the land to strip away the masks men wear to appear strong.