Ben-Hur (1959)

Ben-Hur is awesome. The chariot race was phenomenal...and Heston did all his own stunts in that film!

a really powerful Easter season movie!

I created a new thread and added a score to the database...

This was on TCM today. I DVR'd it. It might take me a while to watch due to its length but for sure I'll see it before 9/11 when I leave LA for good.

On a side note, Robert Osborne on TCM sort of ruined it for me Apparently there's an 11 minute Chariot Race that was quite famous (I didn't know that ). Contrary to popular belief, nobody was killed in the filming of that scene.

No one killed, but very harrowing, as you will see. It's De Mille at his best.
Great story line too. Enjoy!

laprimamirala wrote:

a really powerful Easter season movie!

Awesome movie! I've seen that a couple of times already. Everytime (normally Easter season) it's on TV and i see it, i have to watch it again!

Definitely 95.5/100

swiss_tiger wrote:

laprimamirala wrote:

a really powerful Easter season movie!

Awesome movie! I've seen that a couple of times already. Everytime (normally Easter season) it's on TV and i see it, i have to watch it again!

Definitely 95.5/100

With that review, Ben-Hur is now tied with Das Boot for the DTF1 bronze medal. Whenever I get around to watching it (probably within the next month) I'll break the tie - I award half points, but not quarter points therefore I cannot award a score of 95.25 so the rating must change one way or the other. Of course by then something else could score a 95.5+ and knock both of them out of the bronze medal position.

Ben-Hur tells the story of a man, Jonah Ben-Hur, who has been arrested along with his sister and mother. The story tells his journey to try and find his family. It is sort of like The Odyssey in the sense there is a long, epic journey across thousands of miles to do this. At nearly four hours in length, it is rather difficult to keep the plot going and this film does feel a little slow at times, especially in the first half of the film. After the entr'acte the film begins to pick up quite a bit.

The film stars Charlton Heston and a cast of several others. As is typical for an epic film, the lead has a very complex role to play and I'd say Heston played it well. The other actors, when present, also do a good job. While Heston deservedly won the Academy Award for best actor, I am a little surprised that Hugh Griffith won for Best Supporting Actor. While he did a good enough job in this film, he hardly had any screen time and even for a supporting actor his role seemed kind of minor. Then again, it seems like every time I see a film with a best supporting actor I question the decision so I'm probably not the best judge of who is deserving of that award or what a supporting actor actually is.

One area of the film worth mentioning specifically is the famous chariot race scene which runs for around eleven minutes. This scene, one of the most memorable in cinema history, is very well-done and along with the chase scene in Bullitt is probably one of the best race scenes I've ever seen. Even more amazing is the fact that there was no CGI or anything of the sort in 1959.

While I am not a religious person at all, I think the religion was presented in a subtle enough way as to not be distracting. I didn't really like the miracle at the end of the movie, but it is a religious story so I can't really complain too much about that.

Overall, this was significantly better than the only other Heston film I've seen, Soylent Green. Despite the fact the first half was tedious at times and it got a little overly-preachy at times for my liking, this is still a good movie overall and definitely worth seeing.

84/100
B

UP NEXT: Either I'll continue with Best Picture winners and move to the following year's winner, The Apartment or I'll go with Witness for the Prosecution.

What I was amazed with is Stephen Boyd got hardly a nod for his role as Masala (sp?).
There were no stunt guys for Boyd or Heston, either. Those horses were incredibly well trained.

laprimamirala wrote:

What I was amazed with is Stephen Boyd got hardly a nod for his role as Masala (sp?).
There were no stunt guys for Boyd or Heston, either. Those horses were incredibly well trained.

Yeah, before I won this I saw that one of the awards won was Best Supporting Actor. Until I read the wikipedia article after watching the film I was quite surprised that Stephen Boyd wasn't the winner - I had assumed he'd won it the whole time I saw the movie.

Another big slight was Haya Harareet in the role of Esther. She played that role so well, so believably. She really didn't do too much afterward either.

It would be great to see either Ben-Hur or the Ten Commandments in a drive-in theater with the sun setting as a backdrop! That's how these epics were meant to be seen!

laprimamirala wrote:

Another big slight was Haya Harareet in the role of Esther. She played that role so well, so believably. She really didn't do too much afterward either.

It would be great to see either Ben-Hur or the Ten Commandments in a drive-in theater with the sun setting as a backdrop! That's how these epics were meant to be seen!

I was thinking about seeing The Ten Commandments (either one, the silent and talkie are both De Mille's). I've never seen a De Mille movie (unless you count Sunset Blvd. where he acted and was brilliant as he stood there letting Gloria Swanson say she was ready for her close-up....actually he wasn't brilliant there, he just didn't get in the way of Swanson's brilliance).

There's also a silent version of Ben-Hur that has decent reviews.

And yes, Drive-Ins rock! Sadly the nearest one to my house is 30 miles and the second nearest one is 60 miles There used to be one 5 miles from my house but it closed about 30 years ago and became an empty lot/ site of a swap meet before it was finally converted into a Target and shopping area about 10 years ago.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Harareet is still alive