Variety praised the film as "a fast-action color-rich, corpse-strewn, battle picture...The Spanish scenery is magnificent, the costumes are vivid, the chain mail and Toledo steel gear impressive." A review in Time magazine felt that "Surprisingly, the picture is good—maybe not as good as Ben-Hur, but anyway better than any spectacle since Spartacus." They also noted that "Bronston's epic has its embarrassments. El Cid himself, too, crudely contemporarized 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, Anthony Mann has managed his immense material with firmness, elegance, and a sure sense of burly epic rhythm." Harrison's Reports praised the performances from Heston and Loren and summarized the film as "raw and strong, brooding and challenging, romantic and powerfully dramatic. It is motion picture entertainment ascending new heights of pomp, pageantry, panoply." Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times opened his review writing, "El Cid brings back the excitement of movie-making; it may even bring back the excitement of movie-going. It's as big as Ben-Hur if not bigger. If it had put a few more connectives in the narrative, if it had not thrown in an excess of everything else in three hours running time, it might have been great." A review in Newsweek described the film as being "crammed with jousts and battles, and its sound track is reminiscent of Idlewild airport on a busy day, but the dramatics in it explode with all the force of a panful of popcorn." It also derided Mann's direction as "slow, stately, and confused, while Miss Loren and Heston spend most of the picture simply glaring at each other." Sophia Loren had a major issue with Bronston's promotion of the film, an issue important enough to her that Loren sued him for breach of contract in New York Supreme Court. As Time magazine described it: On a 600-sq.-ft. billboard facing south over Manhattan's Times Square, Sophia Loren's name appears in illuminated letters that could be read from an incoming liner, but—Mamma mia!—that name is below Charlton Heston's. In the language of the complaint: "If the defendants are permitted to place deponent's name below that of Charlton Heston, then it will appear that deponent's status is considered to be inferior to that of Charlton Heston... It is impossible to