Ben-Hur: A Tale of the
Christ (1925) and Ben-Hur (1959)
dramatize the novel from 1880 by Lew Wallace about a wealthy Jewish prince
during the time of the Roman occupation of Judea who was sent into slavery by
his old friend, now a Roman soldier who aspires to political high office. Judah
Ben-Hur will eventually avenge himself, sorrow and suffer, and his path will
cross many times with Jesus Christ until the moment of Christ’s Passion. The
story combines so many elements dear to Hollywood: a successful novel, a
biblical epic wherein images of suffering, torture, a certain degree of
salaciousness, are permitted because they are deemed biblical, including a showing
fair degree of muscled legs and chest of our hero, and the opportunity to
appear as if they are enlightening their public as much as entertaining them.
We mark the annual crisscrossing of Passover and Easter with this story of Ben-Hur.
Astonishingly, however, there is much about both movies that
is quite similar, including much of the chariot race and the scenes leading up
to the race. The 1925 version is a little closer to the novel, but it is no
less an opportunity to embrace all that is lavish and lush about an era in
Hollywood where there was no CGI and those thousands of people we see in the arena
and on the rocky hillsides and the lonely road to Calvary, were real people and
not embedded by computer-aided graphics. One might even note that the naval
battle in the 1925 version is actually a little more impressive than the 1959
version because it does not appear so much like models in the M-G-M pool.
One of the great delights of the Easter season is watching
these old Hollywood epics on regular broadcast television. As we know,
broadcast TV rarely shows classic films these days; they are to be found only
on retro channels and on TCM, so fewer people are exposed to classic films
today. And though broadcast TV does include those pesky commercials, does
include edits which are extremely annoying to us old movie fans, there is still
something wonderfully egalitarian about being able to see them for free,
especially when one is sated after the holiday family meal and the kids are
tired out from a long day of festivities and the whole family can gather in
front of the TV and watch Hollywood’s ambitious take on the deeper meaning of
the season.
Of course, Hollywood’s take on the deeper meaning is never
all that deep, but it is entertaining and picturesque, sometimes as magnificent
a feast for the eye as the old Renaissance masters’ versions of biblical events;
their views were also slanted viewpoints. We could note that the scene of the
Last Supper in the 1925 version of Ben-Hur
looks almost exactly like the da Vinci painting. Of course, that was da Vinci’s
version of the Last Supper, which probably did not happen on a long rectangular
table with all twelve apostles and Christ sitting on one side of the table like
the dais at a Friars roast. More likely they were all seated together on the
floor, dipping pieces of their unleavened bread into a communal dish. And the
lighting wasn’t as good.
The other fun aspect about watching biblical epics is that
they always end up containing a dream team of players. Sometime or other we’re
going to have to discuss The Ten
Commandments (1956), a movie I cannot think of without recalling Edward G.
Robinson in one of his most campy roles. Just hearing his gangster delivery
makes me laugh. (Or was that Billy Crystal?) But that is Hollywood.
It was in The Ten
Commandments that Charlton Heston first became famous for the biblical
genre. He played Moses in that epic free-for-all, and he comes to the 1959 Ben-Hur with that under his belt. Sam
Jaffe and Finlay Currie as well as Martha Scott are the old-timers from classic
films here, but they are joined by popular actors of the day such as Stephen
Boyd, and Hugh Griffith, who with great panache plays Sheik Ilderim. Newcomer Haya
Harareet plays Esther in what was intended to be a dash of authenticity in this
version. Ms. Harareet was herself from Israel, born before that country was
established when it was still part of British Palestine. She made only a
handful of films after that however. Director
William Wyler cast most of the Romans with British actors and most of the Jews
with American actors, because he felt the distinction in accents would help
differentiate them in the minds of the viewers.
It seems that most Romans in the old epics were played by Brits, which
may lead many of us to assume Caesar studied at Oxford.
The 1925 version of Ben-Hur,
untroubled by the need for different accents, we also have a dream team of
sorts. Except for star Ramon Navarro and
Francis X. Bushman, the movie features a large cast of actors who are predominantly
unknown even to classic film buffs. This might give the film more of a purity
in the sense that we come to the story without any preconceived notions about
the actors playing the roles. However, most of us would be delightfully shocked
to discover that many of the Hollywood stars of the day played uncredited bit
parts in this movie, lending themselves to crowd scenes, including John and Lionel
Barrymore, who supposedly were spectators at the chariot race, as was director
Clarence Brown, Joan Crawford and Marion Davis, Douglas Fairbanks, John
Gilbert, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, as well as producer Samuel Goldwyn. Even
theater owner Sid Grauman of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was there in the stands.
Gary Cooper is supposed to have played a Roman guard, as was Clark Gable. Janet
Gaynor and Myrna Loy played slave girls. I did not see them, but I promise you
I’m going to watch this movie over and over again until I can find them. Let me
know if you do. I don’t think there has
ever been such a collection of future stars in bit parts in the same movie.
There actually is
something very pure and very innocent and strikingly emotional in the 1925
silent Ben- Hur. Directed by Fred Niblo,
June Mathis was the scriptwriter, and we may recall that the 1920s was a time
of greater opportunity in Hollywood for women. Ramon Navarro, a really excellent
actor, is handsome and very moving as Ben-Hur. Francis X. Bushman is his friend
and foe Messala the Roman soldier. In the 1959 version Stephen Boyd plays the
role and at first, he and Charlton Heston meet after an absence of many years
and renew their childhood friendship. It is only after they discuss the political
events of the day and Boyd’s request that Heston inform on fellow Jews who work
against the Roman Empire that they fall out and become enemies. Though the 1925
version has Navarro welcoming Bushman after a long absence, the beefy and brash
Bushman acts like a bully from his first entrance.
May McAvoy plays Esther, the
daughter of Simonides who is Ben-Hur’s slave and steward. She will be his
future love. Claire McDowell plays his mother and Kathleen Key plays his sister
Tirzah. Mitchell Lewis plays the flamboyant Sheik Ilderim but he does not have
the grandiose humor of Hugh Griffith. Charles Belcher plays Balthazar, one of
the Three Kings who paid tribute to Christ at his birth and who has been
seeking him these many years. Finlay Currie gets the job in the 1959 version,
and also serves as narrator.
The moments where Ben-Hur’s life intersects with the life of
Christ are commonly treated with a two- strip Technicolor process. We see the
brightly colored robes and skin tone on the actors.
Though the grand scenes of the
enormous palaces, the gigantic sets are mind blowing, we are treated to very
small, intimate scenes of equal power as was common in silent film. After the impressive
naval battle when Ben-Hur has rescued the Roman captain and they are brought to
another ship, he climbs the outer net of rope rigging to the deck and he passes
by a porthole where a fellow galley slave looks up at him mournfully. So much
is said with a glance. The director gets a lot of mileage out of these kinds of
scenes. One of the problems with the widescreen process as used in 1959 is, as
director William Wyler himself lamented, all the space has to be used and so
even when the director is focusing on two people in the scene, the audience is
going to be looking elsewhere because there is so much else to look at. The
director is not able to focus on a pinpoint moment.
The chariot race is perhaps the most famous element of either
movie or even the book. It is stunning. The silent version gives us remarkable
camera angles where both actors are seen handling the four horses that pull
their chariots and I’m assuming that stunt doubles were kept to a minimum simply
because of the difficulty of filming. There are those amazing shots, replicated
in the 1959 version, of the chariot actually driving over the camera which has
been placed into the ground. The stunning wide sweeping shots of the chariots
making turns and thrusting down the straightaway, sometimes crashing into each
other and overturning is breathtaking. What the silent version lacks is the
sound of hoofbeats. We have a beautifully restored version of the 1925 film
from 1988 scored by Carl Davis which provides a stirring backdrop to this
scene, but we have no hoofbeats.
One thing that some critics remarked upon in the 1959 version
was that it was a very slow, unwieldy tale, a very long movie and the parade of
characters were presented with chronological diligence but with without raw
emotion. The 1925 version carries all the raw emotion including several scenes
that are utterly heartbreaking. We may note that this movie was remade in 2016,
and it was not successful, but though I have not seen it I can imagine one
reason for its lack of success among others – the heavy use of computer
graphics makes a modern film more cost-effective but it removes us emotionally
from the scene. It must have been extremely expensive and extremely laborious
to have thousands and thousands of people rising as one, perfectly
choreographed to cheer during the chariot race but it is far more effective
because it is real, and because people whose emotions we understand are more
interesting, and always will be, than technology we don’t understand.
Both movies deal with the representation of Christ as a silent
figure and whom we see only from the back or only his arm, or his hand. Christ
gives Ben-Hur a drink of water when he has been marching through the desert to
become a galley slave and we see his gentle touch on Charlton Heston’s hair;
the difference, however, is that the reaction toward Christ is on a more human and
less spiritual manner in the 1959 version. When Charlton Heston looks up at Christ,
Heston’s expression seems to tell us that he is grateful for the water and
relieved he has found a sympathetic person who is helping him. He does not look
as if looking into the face of the Messiah. Ironically, the Roman soldier who
comes by to bark at him and tell Christ to go away suddenly stops and looks
towards Christ with more of a sensation of encountering something strangely mystical.
We see a more powerful reaction from the soldier than we do from Heston.
Ramon Navarro always appears as if deeply moved when The
Nazarene crosses his path. Another interesting moment done with pure acting, is
when his mother and sister are healed from their leprosy by their interaction
with Christ. They had been told that The Nazarene performs miracles for those
who believe and they arrive in time for his Passion as he drags the heavy cross
through the streets. We don’t see his face; we see the cross on his shoulder
and his face is behind it. They sorrow for him, and just with lighting, a white
light that centers on their faces, the dark circles of their illness disappear
and they immediately delight, acting as if they had been cured of their
leprosy. There is no Jekyll and Hyde makeup transformation; it is all in the
acting.
The 1959 version has Christ on the cross in the storm, the
rain pouring down, dripping from his fingers on the hand nailed to the
cross. In a nearby cave, Ben-Hur’s mother
and sister discover they are cured of leprosy. The darkness of the cave masks
their need to wear makeup. The 1959 version is more sweaty and dirty, but even
the realism does not match the heartbreak of the 1925 mother and sister close enough
to the sleeping Ben-Hur to touch him, but resisting to wake him from sleep
because they want to spare him the knowledge of their leprosy.
Both films make an attempt to address the political issues
of a conquered people, for the biblical events, as in current events, are always
as much about politics as about faith. Ben-Hur’s quest for Christ is his militant
quest for a king to lead them out of Roman bondage, but he eventually adopts
Christ’s message of peace. In the 1959 version Stephen Boyd taunts Charlton
Heston with the idea that he is a member of a conquered people and he needs to
get used to that. “The glory of Solomon is gone... Joshua will not rise again
to save you, nor David.” To which Charlton Heston replies, “Rome is evil...
Rome is an affront to God.”
The story ends with Ben-Hur reunited with his mother and
sister, and with his love, Esther. But there’s a big “what happens next” that
is never answered. How does he live with no end to Roman occupation for the
rest of his life? We are meant to assume that the early Christian followers
find strength and comfort in the teachings of Christ and in their own growing
numbers, but though Hollywood enjoyed platitudes as a way of staying on the
good side of the public who always thought that movie capital was a Babylon
among the orange groves, it did not even trouble to answer the larger questions,
preferring to wallow in the spectacle.
I enjoy biblical epics, but not because I find them
instructive or inspirational; rather because, like a painting by a great
master, they are imaginative pictures of wondrous events brought down to a
human level we are better able to relate to – and despite the temptresses, the virile
warriors, and the gauzily dressed slave girls, I think the most frivolous thing
about them is that they are so irresistibly commercial.
So frivolous that, unlike the more meaningful and reflective
rituals of the holidays, I cannot help but equate theses movies with a handful
of jelly beans and winding down a busy weekend of celebration.
May I wish a Blessed Passover and a Happy Easter to all who
celebrate.
You have a chance to watch the 1959 Ben-Hur this Easter Sunday on TCM.
You have a chance to watch the 1959 Ben-Hur this Easter Sunday on TCM.
Have a look at the chariot scene from the 1925 version
below.
