Twenty years later, with Arminio (Massimo Girotti) having grown up in the forest, Sedemondo arranges a tournament to determine who will marry Elsa (Elisa Cegani).

It stands out in Blasetti's filmography, as several of his most famous films instead were shot on location and used non-professional actors, whereas this was instead a big budget, controlled, set structured production.

But the film wastes no time in dropping all religious overtones and comfortably settling in the old boy meets girl rut.

"[6] The American film scholar Peter Bondanella wrote in his 2009 book A History of Italian Cinema: "The Iron Crown is an ambiguous work: while its message underlines a common sentiment among Italians at the time—the desire for peace and the cessation of hostilities during World War II—the symbolic implications of the search for a charismatic leader who will restore a magic crown to its rightful place in Rome may also point to Mussolini, Il Duce of a newly revived Rome.

Nonetheless, Blasetti unquestionably gave new life to the Italian treatment of heroic mythology born in the silent era with Pastrone's Cabiria, and The Iron Crown is one of several important antecedents to the postwar genre of the peplum ('sword and sandal' epic) that would become such a cult favorite among film buffs.