Trailer
Plot summary
In the sixteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition arrests the playwright Miguel de Cervantes and his manservant over a play it finds offensive. In the dungeon where they are held, the other inmates stage a mock trial to take his belongings. Cervantes wants to save a manuscript he carries, and he mounts his defense by acting out the story of Don Quixote, an elderly gentleman who believes he is a knight-errant and rides out with his squire, Sancho Panza, to correct the world's wrongs.
Cast
- Dorothy Sinclairas The Innkeeper's Wife
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Man of La Mancha (1972)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 1967 United Artists paid more than $2.25 million for the film rights to Man of La Mancha, the second-highest amount ever paid for a musical play, behind only the $5.5 million Warner Bros. paid for My Fair Lady.
- Director Albert Marre, hired with writer Dale Wasserman and composer Mitch Leigh, burned part of the budget on screen tests, angering United Artists; he was fired, and Wasserman, Leigh, and stage stars Richard Kiley and Joan Diener left the project with him.
- British director Peter Glenville, who had cast Peter O'Toole as Cervantes and Quixote, was fired after it was learned he planned to eliminate most of the play's songs from the film.
- Peter O'Toole, who had wanted to make a "straight" non-musical drama with his friend Peter Glenville, was highly displeased when Glenville was replaced by Arthur Hiller, whom he called "Little Arthur".
- O'Toole, who could not sing, helped search for a voice double once he realized the film would be a musical; Simon Gilbert was chosen for the task.
- Brian Blessed says in his autobiography that he dubbed the singing voice of Harry Andrews, the Innkeeper, while also appearing on screen as Pedro.
- Two stage songs, "What Does He Want of Me?" and "To Each His Dulcinea", were omitted from the film, along with verses of "Aldonza" and the deathbed reprise of "Dulcinea", and Aldonza's range was lowered from soprano to contralto to match Sophia Loren.
- The film has Cervantes arrested for staging a play that mocks the Inquisition, while the real Cervantes was jailed for unpaid debts, never found guilty of a crime, and excommunicated for gathering church corn to provision the Spanish Armada.
