History has thrown up few events as dramatic and decisive as the four-day campaign that culminated in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1970, Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis spent $25 million to re-stage Napoleon's tumultuous encounter with Wellington, portrayed by Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer. It was directed by Sergei Bondarchuk who deployed almost 20,000 Soviet soldiers in a noble attempt to tell the story "faithfully."...