Ben-Hur (1925 film)
Ben-Hur | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Charles Brabin (uncredited) Fred Niblo |
Produced by | Louis B. Mayer |
Written by | June Mathis (adaptation) Carey Wilson (scenario and continuity) Bess Meredyth (continuity) Katharine Hilliker (titles) Harry H. Caldwell (titles) |
Based on | Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace |
Starring | Ramón Novarro Francis X. Bushman May McAvoy Betty Bronson |
Music by | William Axt David Mendoza |
Cinematography | Clyde De Vinna René Guissart Percy Hilburn Karl Struss Glenn Kershner |
Edited by | Lloyd Nosler |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release dates
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Running time
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143 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent English intertitles |
Budget | $3,967,000[1][2] |
Box office | $10,738,000[1][2] |
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a 1925 American epic silent film directed by Fred Niblo. It stars Ramón Novarro and Francis X. Bushman, and is based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace. The novel was first adapted for the screen in 1907 also titled Ben Hur.
In 1997, Ben-Hur was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Contents
Plot
Ben-Hur is a wealthy Jew and boyhood friend of the powerful Roman Tribune, Messala. When an accident leads to Ben-Hur's arrest, Messala, who has become corrupt and arrogant, makes sure Ben-Hur and his family are jailed and separated.
Ben-Hur is sentenced to slave labor in a Roman war galley. Along the way, he unknowingly encounters Jesus, the carpenter's son who offers him water. Once aboard ship, his attitude of defiance and strength impresses a Roman admiral, Quintus Arrius, who allows him to remain unchained. This actually works in the Admiral's favor because when his ship is attacked and sunk by pirates, Ben-Hur saves him from drowning.
Arrius then treats Ben-Hur as a son, and over the years the young man grows strong and becomes a victorious chariot racer. This eventually leads to a climactic showdown with Messala in a chariot race, in which Ben-Hur is the victor. However, Messala does not die, as he does in the more famous 1959 remake of the film.
Ben-Hur is eventually reunited with his mother and sister, who are suffering from leprosy but are miraculously cured by Jesus.[3]
Cast
- Ramón Novarro as Judah Ben-Hur
- Francis X. Bushman as Messala
- May McAvoy as Esther
- Betty Bronson as Mary
- Kathleen Key as Tirzah
- Carmel Myers as Iras
- Nigel De Brulier as Simonides
- Mitchell Lewis as Sheik Ilderim
- Leo White as Sanballat
- Frank Currier as Quintus Arrius
- Charles Belcher as Balthazar
- Dale Fuller as Amrah
- Winter Hall as Joseph
- Crowd extras during chariot race
- Reginald Barker
- John Barrymore
- Lionel Barrymore
- Clarence Brown
- Joan Crawford
- Marion Davies
- Douglas Fairbanks
- George Fitzmaurice
- Sidney Franklin
- John Gilbert
- Dorothy Gish
- Lillian Gish
- Samuel Goldwyn
- Sid Grauman
- Rupert Julian
- Henry King
- Harold Lloyd
- Colleen Moore
- Mary Pickford
Production
Ben-Hur: A Tale of The Christ had been a great success as a novel, and was adapted into a stage play which ran for twenty-five years. In 1922, two years after the play's last tour, the Goldwyn company purchased the film rights to Ben-Hur. The play's producer, Abraham Erlanger, put a heavy price on the screen rights. Erlanger was persuaded to accept a generous profit participation deal and total approval over every detail of the production.
Shooting began in Rome, Italy in October 1923 under the direction of Charles Brabin who was replaced shortly after filming began. Additional recastings (including Ramón Novarro as Ben-Hur) and a change of director caused the production's budget to skyrocket. After two years of difficulties and accidents, the production was eventually moved back to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Culver City, California and production resumed in the spring of 1925. B. Reeves Eason and Christy Cabanne directed the second unit footage.[4]
Costs eventually rose to $3.9 million,[5] making Ben-Hur the most expensive film of the silent era.[citation needed]
A total of 60,960 m (200,000 ft) of film was shot for the chariot race scene, which was eventually edited down to 229 m (750 ft).[6] Film critic Kevin Brownlow has called the chariot race sequence as creative and influential a piece of cinema as the famous Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin, which introduced modern concepts of film editing and montage to cinema.[7] This scene has been much imitated. It was re-created virtually shot for shot in the 1959 remake, copied in the 1998 animated film The Prince of Egypt, and more recently imitated in the pod race scene in the 1999 film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace which was made almost 75 years later.
"Chariot Race" painting by Alexander von Wagner as basis of the chariot set design/cinematography.
Some scenes in the film were in two-color Technicolor, most notably the sequences involving Jesus. One of the assistant directors for this sequence was a very young William Wyler, who would direct the 1959 remake. The black-and-white footage was color tinted and toned in the film's original release print.[4]
Reception
The studio's publicity department was relentless in promoting the film, advertising it with lines like: "The Picture Every Christian Ought to See!" and "The Supreme Motion Picture Masterpiece of All Time". Although audiences flocked to Ben-Hur after its premiere in 1925 and the picture grossed $9 million worldwide, its huge expenses and the deal with Erlanger made it a net financial loss for MGM. It recorded an overall loss of $698,000.[2]
In terms of publicity and prestige however, it was a great success. "The screen has yet to reveal anything more exquisitely moving than the scenes at Bethlehem, the blazing of the star in the heavens, the shepherds and the Wise Men watching. The gentle, radiant Madonna of Betty Bronson's is a masterpiece," wrote a reviewer for Photoplay. "No one," they concluded, "no matter what his age or religion, should miss it. And take the children."[8] It helped establish the new MGM as a major studio.[9][10]
The film was re-released in 1931 with an added musical score, by the original composers William Axt and David Mendoza, and sound effects. As the decades passed, the original two-color Technicolor segments were replaced by alternate black-and-white takes. Ben-Hur earned $1,352,000 during its re-release and made a profit of $779,000 meaning it had an overall profit of $81,000.[2] It remains one of the few films at Rotten Tomatoes to maintain a 100% freshness rating.[11]
Restoration
The Technicolor scenes were considered lost until the 1980s when Turner Entertainment (who by then had acquired the rights to the film) found the crucial sequences in a Czech film archive. Current prints of the 1925 version are from the Turner-supervised restoration. The restoration includes the color tints and Technicolor sections, set to resemble the original theatrical release. There is an addition of a newly recorded stereo orchestral soundtrack by Carl Davis with the London Philharmonic Orchestra which was originally recorded for a Thames Television screening of the movie.
DVD release
Ben-Hur was released on DVD, complete with the Technicolor segments, in the four-disc collector's edition of the 1959 version starring Charlton Heston, as well as in the 2011 "Fiftieth Anniversary Edition" Blu-ray Collector's Edition three-disc box set.
See also
- List of films featuring slavery
- Francis X. Bushman filmography
- List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website
References
- Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 H. Mark Glancy, 'MGM Film Grosses, 1924-28: The Eddie Mannix Ledger', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 12 No. 2 1992 p127-144 at p129
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- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Brownlow, p. 413.
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- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Ben-Hur at Rotten Tomatoes
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ben-Hur (1925 film). |
- 1925 films
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with unsourced statements from September 2014
- Commons category link is defined as the pagename
- 1920s adventure films
- 1920s drama films
- American films
- American adventure drama films
- American silent feature films
- Animal cruelty incidents
- American epic films
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
- United States National Film Registry films
- Films based on American novels
- Films directed by Fred Niblo
- Films directed by Charles Brabin
- Films shot in Italy
- Films shot in Rome
- Films shot in Los Angeles, California
- Films set in ancient Rome
- Films set in the Roman Empire
- Films set in the 1st century
- Religious epic films
- Silent films in color
- Portrayals of Jesus in film
- Portrayals of the Virgin Mary in film
- Films produced by Louis B. Mayer
- Ben-Hur films