The 300 Spartans

King Leonidas (Richard Egan) rules Sparta in 480 B.C., and he is the man the Greek city-states look to when a Persian army of more than 25,000 marches on them under Xerxes (David Farrar). Rudolph Maté shot it in CinemaScope on location in the Peloponnese, with Greek government cooperation. Leonidas takes only 300 Spartans to hold the pass at Thermopylae, and everything left behind in Greece depends on how long they can keep it.