Ben-Hur

Director: William Wyler William Wyler

Overview

This 1959 version of Lew Wallace's best-selling novel, which had already seen screen versions in 1907 and 1926, went on to win 11 Academy Awards. Adapted by Karl Tunberg and a raft of uncredited writers including Gore Vidal and Maxwell Anderson, the film once more recounts the tale of Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), who lives in Judea with his family during the time that Jesus Christ was becoming known for his "radical" teachings. Ben-Hur's childhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd) is now an ambitious Roman tribune; when Ben-Hur refuses to help Messala round up local dissidents on behalf of the Emperor, Messala pounces on the first opportunity to exact revenge on his onetime friend. Framed on a charge of attempting to kill the provincial governor, Ben-Hur is condemned to the Roman galleys, while his mother (Martha Scott) and sister (Cathy O'Donnell) are imprisoned. But during a sea battle, Ben-Hur saves the life of commander Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who, in gratitude, adopts Ben-Hur as his son and gives him full control over his stable of racing horses. Ben-Hur never gives up trying to find his family or exact revenge on Messala. At crucial junctures in his life, he also crosses the path of Jesus, and each time he benefits from it. The highlight of the film's 212 minutes is its now-legendary chariot race, staged largely by stunt expert Yakima Canutt. Ben-Hur's Oscar haul included Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary William Wyler, Best Actor for Heston, and Best Supporting Actor for British actor Hugh Griffith as an Arab sheik.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/07/2012
UPC:	0883929209422
Original Release:	1959
Rating:	G
Source:	Warner Home Video
Time:	3:42:00
Sales rank:	74

Special Features

Commentary by Film Historian T. Gene Hatcher with Charlton Heston; Music-Only Track Showcasing Miklós Rózsa's Award-Winning Score; Theatrical Trailers

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Charlton Heston	Judah Ben Hur
Stephen Boyd	Messala
Jack Hawkins	Quintus Arrius
Haya Harareet	Esther
Hugh Griffith	Sheik Ilderim
Sam Jaffe	Simonides
Martha Scott	Miriam
Cathy O'Donnell	Tirzah
Finlay Currie	Balthasar
Frank Thring	Pontius Pilate
Terence Longdon	Drusus
Andre Morell	Sextus
Marina Berti	Flavia
George Relph	Tiberius
Adi Berber	Malluch
Stella Vitelleschi	Amrah
Jose Greci	Mary
Laurence Payne	Joseph
John Horsley	Spintho
Richard Coleman	Metellus
Duncan Lamont	Marius
Ralph Truman	Aide to Tiberius
Richard Hale	Gaspar
David Davies	Quaestor
Dervis Ward	Jailer
Mino Doro	Gratus
Robert Brown	Chief of Rowers
Maxwell Shaw	Rower No. 43
Emilio Carrer	Rower No. 28
Tutte Lemkow	Leper
Howard Lang	Hortator
John Le Mesurier	Doctor
Stevenson Lang	Blind Man
Hector Ross	Officer
Al Silvani	Man in Nazareth
Enzo Fiermonte	Galley Officer
Tiberio Mitri	Roman at Bath
Pietro Tordi	Pilate's Servant
Jerry Brown	The Corinthian
Cliff Lyons	Lublon
Joe Yrigoyen	Egyptian
Joe Canutt	Sportsman
Michael Dugan	Seaman
John Glen	Rower No. 42
Ferdinand "Ferdy" Mayne	Captain of Rescue Ship
Reginald Lal Singh	Melchior
Karl Tunberg	Actor
Raimondo Van Riel	Old Man

Technical Credits

Karl Tunberg

William Wyler	Director
Edward C. Carfagno	Production Designer
John D. Dunning	Editor
Arnold A. Gillespie	Special Effects
Elizabeth Haffenden	Costumes/Costume Designer
William Horning	Art Director
Robert MacDonald	Special Effects
Andrew Marton	Asst. Director
Miklós Rózsa	Score Composer
Robert Surtees	Cinematographer
Karl Tunberg	Screenwriter
Gore Vidal	Source Author
Ralph Winters	Editor
Sam Zimbalist	Producer

Editorial Reviews

After more than 40 years, one of the few biblical epics that doesn’t sacrifice humanity for spectacle, Ben-Hur -- an international box-office smash of legendary proportions and the winner of a then-unprecedented 11 Academy Awards -- still retains its power to enthrall viewers. This third movie adaptation of Lew Wallace’s bestselling novel provided Charlton Heston with perhaps his most memorable role: proud Jewish aristocrat Judah Ben-Hur, falsely accused of a crime and sold into slavery, later to confront his Roman enemies and have his life transformed by contact with Jesus Christ. Director William Wyler (Best Years of Our Lives) ensured success by surrounding himself with some of the industry’s greatest artisans, many of them rewarded with Oscars for their contributions to this flawlessly produced movie. Technical perfection aside, Wyler rated his Best Director Oscar for his superb handling of a fine cast including Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet, and Sam Jaffe. But Ben-Hur’s undisputed highlight remains the climactic, breathtaking chariot race, for which Heston and Boyd did most of their own stunt work. That race, and the film’s other spectacular sequences, can now be fully appreciated by home viewers in the newly mastered, wide-screen DVD edition, which augments the film with an illuminating commentary by Heston. Other extras include a documentary on the production ("The Making of an Epic"), a gallery of stills, a theatrical trailer, and recently discovered screen tests.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

William Wyler's Ben-Hur is the quintessential Hollywood biblical epic: a huge story, given a suitably exalted treatment, splashed across a broad canvas, and centered on a pair of well-drawn central characters. It's easy to forget that the film was the culmination of a cycle of religious epics that dated back slightly more than a decade, and closed out the genre as a viable Hollywood phenomenon. Since Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah in 1949, the public had shown a willingness to spend money on screen stories adapted from (or inspired by) the Old or New Testaments; the advent of the Cold War and the threat of thermo-nuclear annihilation likely made filmgoers start thinking about God, heaven, and the hereafter more than usual. Apart from MGM's trouble-plagued Quo Vadis? and 20th Century Fox's The Robe and its sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators, however, few of the resulting movies did more than modest business at the box office, and none received any serious critical respectability. Ben-Hur proved to be an exception: Wyler's direction is sure and carefully balanced, avoiding any hint of the campiness and awkward line delivery that broke the verisimilitude of many of the other films; Charlton Heston, though far from the first choice for the title role (Paul Newman and Rock Hudson both turned it down), brings a compelling intensity to his performance; and Jack Hawkins' work as father figure Quintus Arrius lent the film a dignity comparable to Finlay Currie's St. Peter and Leo Genn's Petronius in Quo Vadis? Coupled with Yakima Canutt's stunt direction, those virtues proved unbeatable. Ben-Hur was the most expensive movie in MGM's history (perhaps not coincidentally, the 1926 silent version of the story had also been the most expensive non-sound production in the studio's history), but it ended up playing for two years in venues all over the world. The film earned enough money to keep the studio solvent, allowing them to acquire other films of this kind for distribution, most notably Nicholas Ray's King of Kings. Ben-Hur was virtually the last film of its kind made in Hollywood, or by Hollywood -- costs were too high to do too many more, and it also seemed as though audiences had seen most of the religious stories that were worth their moviegoing dollars. With the exception of box-office disasters such as The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Bible, most subsequent examples of the genre would be produced in Europe.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder

By hiring William Wyler...MGM hoped to restore some dignity to a genre that had known its greatest triumphs thanks to the enthusiastic vulgarity of Alessandro Blasetti and the inimitable Cecil B. DeMille. The magnificently produced four-disc version of "Ben-Hur" ... ably advances that claim to respectability. It's an exhaustive, almost scholarly textural compendium, with a gorgeous, crisply detailed new two-disc transfer of the 1959 film.

New York Times - Dave Kehr