A true blockbuster of the silent era, I thoroughly enjoyed this (mostly) black and white version of this hoary old epic tale of Biblical times.
Better known to most, I'd guess, from the Oscar-festooned 1959 adaptation directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston, on balance I probably prefer this preceding version directed principally by Fred Niblo and starring Ramon Navarro in the title role.
The movie revolves around two lavishly produced set-pieces, the first, the sea battle between the Roman ships and a fleet of marauding pirate vessels and of course the tumultuous chariot race between Ben Hur and his nemesis Messala. Both of these are jaw-dropping in terms of scale, excitement and indeed danger, sadly the latter term applying in particular to reportedly dozens of horses which needlessly perished in staging the race. Some of the collisions involving the unwitting animals are look-away revolting and one can only hope that the cruel carnage inflicted on them opened some eyes about the need for animal welfare on movie sets.
Elsewhere the underlying theme of anti-Semitism as practiced by the powerful Romans over the Jewish citizenry still has relevance today and even if my inbuilt atheism found the religious symbolism to be quite heavy-handed, with the actual figure of Jesus only ever shown partially obscured as if we're not to fit to see Him, as if we don't already have an image in our head about what He looks like. This over-reverence carries over to the admittedly surprising and effective depiction of all His appearances in two-strip technicolour which must have amazed, impressed and awed viewers at the time, which no doubt was the intention..
The acting is very much of its time with lots of eye-rolling and arms-raising to the heavens for (over)-dramatic effect but I personally found the ill-fated Navarro's acting in the title role to be more human and credible than Heston's chin-jutting heroism decades later.
Still, it's those stirring action scenes which you'll remember most. I've just returned from a trip to Ephesus and seen there its stunning, excavated 25000-seater Roman-built auditorium and it was this amazing race with some of the cameras obviously buried in the ground so that the chariots literally ran over them, which I was imagining as I looked around it.
Like many of the incredible crowd-scenes and massive sets, the film is itself a monument to the excess and grandeur of the short-lived glory days of Golden Age silent Hollywood. A perfect Babylonian fit between two eras 2000 years apart, a case of art imitating life.
Better known to most, I'd guess, from the Oscar-festooned 1959 adaptation directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston, on balance I probably prefer this preceding version directed principally by Fred Niblo and starring Ramon Navarro in the title role.
The movie revolves around two lavishly produced set-pieces, the first, the sea battle between the Roman ships and a fleet of marauding pirate vessels and of course the tumultuous chariot race between Ben Hur and his nemesis Messala. Both of these are jaw-dropping in terms of scale, excitement and indeed danger, sadly the latter term applying in particular to reportedly dozens of horses which needlessly perished in staging the race. Some of the collisions involving the unwitting animals are look-away revolting and one can only hope that the cruel carnage inflicted on them opened some eyes about the need for animal welfare on movie sets.
Elsewhere the underlying theme of anti-Semitism as practiced by the powerful Romans over the Jewish citizenry still has relevance today and even if my inbuilt atheism found the religious symbolism to be quite heavy-handed, with the actual figure of Jesus only ever shown partially obscured as if we're not to fit to see Him, as if we don't already have an image in our head about what He looks like. This over-reverence carries over to the admittedly surprising and effective depiction of all His appearances in two-strip technicolour which must have amazed, impressed and awed viewers at the time, which no doubt was the intention..
The acting is very much of its time with lots of eye-rolling and arms-raising to the heavens for (over)-dramatic effect but I personally found the ill-fated Navarro's acting in the title role to be more human and credible than Heston's chin-jutting heroism decades later.
Still, it's those stirring action scenes which you'll remember most. I've just returned from a trip to Ephesus and seen there its stunning, excavated 25000-seater Roman-built auditorium and it was this amazing race with some of the cameras obviously buried in the ground so that the chariots literally ran over them, which I was imagining as I looked around it.
Like many of the incredible crowd-scenes and massive sets, the film is itself a monument to the excess and grandeur of the short-lived glory days of Golden Age silent Hollywood. A perfect Babylonian fit between two eras 2000 years apart, a case of art imitating life.