There is nothing like William Wyler’s Ben-Hur, which was released in 1959. Hollywood just simply does not make them like this anymore. The 222-minute film (that’s nearly three and a half hours for those counting) cost MGM $15 million to make in 1959 and every cent was put to good use. It was the first film to win 11 Oscars, a number only matched by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Ben-Hur stars Charlton Heston as the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur during the time of Christ. Rome has taken over Judea and Ben-Hur is recruited by Massala (Stephen Boyd) to quiet the rebellion against Rome. Ben-Hur refuses and is thrown into slavery. However, he saves Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who adopts him as his son. In order to get his revenge on Massala for throwing his mother and sister into slavery with him, he decides to go against him in a chariot race. After the race, he and Esther (Haya Harareet) will later witness the Crucifixion of Christ, which moves him incredibly. Thanks to Wlyer’s desire to make the film appeal to as wide an audience as possible, Christ’s role is a little more open. He staged the film so that people reacted to him, giving the audience a sense of Christ without shoving it in an audience’s face.
This all plays out over the course of the three and a half hours, which is so much that Warner actually spread the film over two Blu-ray discs. This is a great move because it allows the film to look as crisp and beautiful as a film made today. The incredible width of the film is even more pronounced on a wide screen television. It was shot at a 2.76:1 ratio, making it one of the widest films ever and allowing the chariot race, which is easily the best action scene ever filmed, an even more pronounced power. Movies today aren’t even made in that wide a ratio.
Unlike the Citizen Kane set released earlier in the month, the Ben-Hur Ultimate Collector’s Edition is actually worth the price. The only extras in the box are a huge, 64 page book of photos and a really neat reproduction of Heston’s journal, which he kept religiously during the film’s production. Warner also includes a third disc that houses a standard definition version of the 1925 silent version as well as the previous DVD features. Most of them are interesting promotional pieces like newsreels, which show that film promotion has not changed all that much in 50 years. There is a fairly useless The Epic That Changed Cinema, where modern directors gab about how great the movie is, although The Making of an Epic is a neat hour-long 1994 documentary that covers the origins of Ben-Hur and the novel by Gen. Lew Wallace.
The only newly produced documentary is Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey, which acts as a nice companion to the journal. It is a nice balance between Heston biography and making-of for the film and features interviews with Heston’s family and people that worked with him (which is the only explanation for Tom Selleck’s appearance). The discs for the film have a commentary as well as an amazing music-only track that highlights the Oscar winning score by Miklós Rózsa.
For those that are more frugal with their money when it comes to movies, Best Buy and Wal-Mart do have exclusive movie-only editions, but this Ultimate Collector’s Edition is worth the price for this classic film. It is a definite ‘must have’ and one of the best catalog titles released in the high definition format this year.