When Hollywood moved to Madrid

On a stretch of rustic land leased from the Marquis of Villabrágima, 25 kilometres from Madrid, Bronston spent three months building a papier-mâché Peking three times the size of anything Hollywood had ever produced — a regular fixture in the official NO-DO newsreels of the time.

On that same plot, a Roman forum was later raised, larger than any ever built for a film, with grounds to enter the Guinness Book of Records. Today a residential estate with a golf course stands there instead — not a trace of the set remains, but the sheer fact that an entire empire once fit here is still hard to believe.

This 15th-century castle, with the Sierra de Guadarrama as a backdrop, was the on-screen home of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. Charlton Heston and Sofia Loren filmed here under Anthony Mann's direction, with Babieca — El Cid's horse — becoming something of a local legend in his own right.

A few metres away, in the spot known as "El Rodaje", the same crew also recreated Nazareth for another of Bronston's major productions that same year — two different films, shot almost in the same place, only a few months apart.

This 17th-century arcaded square, with its 234 green balconies, became a circus ring for Circus World (1964), starring John Wayne, Rita Hayworth, and Claudia Cardinale — the last film Bronston would shoot in Spain before his empire began to crumble.

This small hermitage stood in for the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña in El Cid, the setting for Rodrigo and Jimena's reunion. The whole northern stretch of the region — Colmenar Viejo, La Cabrera, Navacerrada — became an open-air set for the film's battles and equestrian scenes.