Most of his comments focus on these specific topics from ancient times, giving laudatory praise to epics such as The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, and the less-known David and Bathsheba. His analysis of the many Roman Empire movies is broad, with Demetrius and the Gladiators emerging as the front-runner in this area. The story of a revolt against tyranny, Spartacus, was given tough love in an extensive review that praises what the movie captured despite the difficult story line. This wraps up the segment of the Ancient World, and the second age of Knights and Barbarians begins with admiration for the historical epic, The Vikings. .
Fraser points out the existence of a large gap of almost a thousand years that Hollywood neglected to produce any movies about if they were not about the Norse sea rovers. Of course, there are exceptions to most everything, with a few movies about Attila the Hun receiving congratulations for their accuracy in casting and costuming. This section ends centuries later in Shakespearian times, and contains a review of Henry V, which Fraser heralds as "the best film ever made." He later contends that The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are near-perfect motion pictures for this period. Surprisingly, Fraser devotes many pages to his dismantling of the modern medieval movie, Braveheart, a favorite to many when it debuted in the mid-1990s. .
The next two chapters titled "Tudors and Sea-Dogs" and "Romance and Royalty" bestow praise to Hollywood for accurately representing the Elizabethan Age a majority of the time. Fraser mentions the collection of films surrounding the events on the ship, The Bounty, but for the most part, these chapters do not analyze many films that have all of the aspects of warfare intertwined into the main plot. This holds true until a review of the films related to Napoleon emerges, with Marie Walewska and Waterloo taking the prize for historical accuracy.
