Though financed by Italian producer Alberto Grimaldi and shot in Rome, the film is in English, with all principal actors either British or American, excepting Sophia Loren.
As Miguel de Cervantes and his manservant wait to be called before the Spanish Inquisition for putting on a play critical of the tribunal, his fellow inmates subject him to a sham trial of their own in order to justify taking all of the possessions he has with him.
Only concerned about the fate of a manuscript, Cervantes mounts his defense in the form of a play, in which he takes the role of Alonso Quijana, an elderly gentleman who has lost his mind and now believes he should go forth as a knight-errant to right the wrongs of the world.
Quijana renames himself Don Quixote de La Mancha and sets out with his "squire", Sancho Panza, attacking a windmill he thinks is a giant, and going to an inn, where he meets, woos, and tries to save Aldonza, a world-weary serving wench and prostitute, who he sees as the ideal woman and calls Dulcinea.
It has never been made clear whether it was Glenville or Hiller who cast non-singing actors Sophia Loren, Harry Andrews, and Rosalie Crutchley in the film.
[2]: 173 In his autobiography Absolute Pandemonium, Brian Blessed claims to have dubbed the singing voice of Harry Andrews, as well as appearing onscreen as Pedro.
Gino Conforti had been a member of the cast of the original stage production of Man of La Mancha, and Julie Gregg had previously appeared on Broadway in a musical.
In the stage version, they arrive at the inn and simply try to reason with him, but he pays no attention, whereas the film depicts an elaborate ruse plotted by Don Quixote's family.
[9] Following the 1972 Christmas season, Man of La Mancha continued its theatrical run well into 1973, and it earned an estimated $3.8 million in rentals in the United States and Canada.
Although Wasserman praised O'Toole and Loren's acting, he nevertheless strongly disliked the film, calling it "exaggerated" and "phony" in an online video interview made shortly before his death.
It referred to the film as being "epically vulgar", and called the song "The Impossible Dream" "surely the most mercilessly lachrymose hymn to empty-headed optimism since Carousel's "You'll Never Walk Alone.
[13] Leonard Maltin still gives the film a BOMB rating in his annual Movie and Video Guide, stating "Beautiful source material has been raped, murdered and buried".
Ebert's colleague Gene Siskel had this to say after the film's premiere in Chicago: On the stage, Man of La Mancha was one continuous motion: after being hauled into prison on a heresy charge by the Spanish Inquisition, poet-dramatist Cervantes staves off an attack by fellow prisoners by fashioning a little play about a loony old man who thinks he's an impossible-dreaming knight.
The play is improvised with props in the jail, and the action flows smoothly from reality to fantasy and-back, with prisoners assuming principal and minor roles.
In the new film version, fantasy and reality are served up chunk-style; the only connecting thread being Peter O'Toole's splendid triple performance as Cervantes, the old man, and Don Quixote de la Mancha.
[16]More positively, Vincent Canby of The New York Times stated that the film was "beautifully acted",[17] and both Peter O'Toole and James Coco received Golden Globe nominations for their performances.
When you're in a darkened theatre with a surrealist set, and Don Quixote says, "That's not a kitchen scullery maid, that’s a princess,” you make the change in your head.