Part fact, part fiction, director Melville Shavelson's (The Five Pennies, Houseboat, The Seven Little Foys) Cast a Giant Shadow powerfully dramatizes Israel's heroic 1948 struggle for independence. Both realistic war story and passionate romance, it features an all-star cast including Kirk Douglas (Spartacus, Paths of Glory, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), Senta Berger (Major Dundee, The Quiller Memorandum, TV's Under Suspicion), and Angie Dickinson (Rio Bravo, Dressed to Kill, Point Blank), as well as Yul Brynner (The King and I, The Magnificent Seven, Westworld), John Wayne (The Searchers, True Grit, Stagecoach, The Quiet Man), and Frank Sinatra (From Here to Eternity, The Manchurian Candidate, Ocean's Eleven) in notable supporting roles. After a brilliant career in the U.S. Army, Jewish American World War II hero Mickey Marcus is called to the new state of Israel to build an army capable of withstanding it's Arab foes. Against the wishes of his wife, Mickey makes the journey and begins transforming a ragtag underground army into a first-class fighting machine. But as the threat of war looms, Mickey must also confront his growing attraction to beautiful activist Magda Simon.