Ben-Hur (1925 film)
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Ben-Hur's great chariot race scene is still regarded as a triumph of silent film making. Costing between 4 and 6 million dollars, it is the most expensive silent film ever made. Ben-Hur was a blockbuster hit for newly merged Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This was the second film based on the novel Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace.
Directed by Fred Niblo, this version of Ben-Hur first appeared in 1925. The film starred Ramon Novarro as the main character Judah Ben-Hur, with Francis X. Bushman as his friend Messala and May McAvoy as Esther.
A total of 60,960 m (200,000 feet) of film was shot for the chariot race scene which was eventually edited down to 229 m (750 feet). This scene has been much imitated. It was re-created virtually shot for shot in the 1959 remake, and more recently imitated in the "pod race scene" in which was made almost 75 years later. Some scenes in the film were in two-color Technicolor. One of the assistant directors for this sequence was a very young William Wyler, who would encounter Ben Hur again 33 years later to direct the 1959 remake.
A 1931 reissue added music, by the original composers William Axt and David Mendoza, and sound effects. As the decades passed, the original Technicolor segments were replaced by black-and-white dubs. These 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 of the Turner-supervised restoration, replete with the color tints and Technicolor sections to resemble the original theatrical release, but with the addition of a newly recorded stereo orchestral soundtrack by Carl Davis which was originally recorded for a Thames Television screening of the movie.
This film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
See also
- Ben-Hur: other uses
External links
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