Watch Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ For Free

I'll tell you why so serious

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

A Jewish prince seeks to find his family and revenge himself upon his childhood friend who had him wrongly imprisoned.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. 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.Strangely, the 1959 version is generally considered the definitive version, or more often people do not even realize an earlier version exists. But I dare say this is actually the superior version. With a good score, this is exciting and adventurous -- sword fights, the chariot race, and an interesting approach to Judeo-Roman history.And, even more startling, if it is true that all those future stars appeared in the film as uncredited extras, this may be the most star-studded film of the 1920s.

LAST NIGHT, BEING Sunday, December 13th, was pretty typical as far as our usual routine goes. We started the day with Church, followed by a special, a good Olde-Fashioned, Sundae Home-cooked Breakfast. Then after a necessary trip to Walgreen's, we watched a whole lot of NFL. Our Bears took it on the chin from the hated rival Green Bay Packers 21-14. (It's been one of those years!) No hard feelings, Cheeseheads! WITH THE SUN punching out early from work these days, the itinerary calls for plenty of relaxin' round the 'bonfire'; which, in the case of us upper neolithic hunter-gatherers, has morphed into the Parlor TV. We usually gradually come down by reading the Sunday Newspapers, taking the dog for a little extra walk and viewing either a LAW & ORDER episode (any one on their family tree), maybe watching a movie on Turner Classic Movies or Fox Movie Channel.AND WHEN THE time for playing Taps arrives, it usually means to have a "spot of Tea" and make sure that the prescriptions for my friend Arthur Ritis are taken in proper numbers and dosage; all being washed down with that Tea (the only good thing the English did for we Irishers)! WELL ON THIS particular eve, the promos on TCM caught our attention. It announced that BEN-HUR would be shown on that Classic Movies Channel that night,late. Well, we were still "up n' at 'em" when the movie started, so we (just "I" actually) decided, what the hey, watch the beginning when young Mr. Charlton Heston and Mr. Stephen Boyd were portraying youthful Judah Ben-Hur and Massala.WOAH! HOLD ON now! This was not the 1959 MGM Big Screen version of 1959; but rather the MGM Big Screen Silent version of 1925. Well we still had the notion about just watching a little of it and then throwing in the towel. Well, Schultz can back me up on this one, there was no way that we were gonna walk away from this one early! FROM THE VERY first scenes portraying the Nation of Israel suffering under the oppression of their Roman Conquerers. Our attention is immediately drawn to the two young boys. One of them being a Jew, Judah Ben-Hur(Ramon Novarro) and Massala (Francis X. Bushman), a young Roman lad; each growing up together in the Holy Land. Neither one knowing or thinking about the realities of the real world; which would all too soon become all too real to them.WITH LITERALLY A CAST of thousands, this Silent boasted of some fine company of actors in support. We have May MacAvoy, Betty Bronson, Claire McDowell, Kathleen Key, Carmel Meyers, Mitchell Lewis, Frank Currier, Charles Belcher, Dale Fuller, Winter Hall and Rippy Hamlin*ADDITIONALLY, THE CAST boasts of having a roster of extras there to be spectators for the Chariot Race that included a veritable Who's Who in Hollywood. Also many of the uncredited players wit only bit parts were present to add a depth here to fore unseen. Among these are: Gary Cooper, Janet Gaynor, Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard, Tom Tyler and Sally Rand. There was also a couple of actors who would have done it all in their lives by careers end. Those being Leo White, who supported Chaplin and The Three Stooges, and Nigel De Bruller, the many times screen Cardinal Richilieu and future Wizard Shazam in THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (Republic,1941).WE CAN ONLY guess as to why the Silent Film form holds such a firm hold on our imaginations. Perhaps it is that the absence of sound, words and dialog on a soundtrack compels a viewer to devote all his attention to the screen. One has to concentrate, read title cards, follow the action and absorb the storyline in relative silence; with only the accompanying musical score to occupy the auditory sense.** ALTHOUGH THE FILM is mainly filmed in glorious b&w, there are several important scenes rendered in the old, 2 strip Technicolour process. Bright and even a bit on the gaudy side,it is nonetheless quite impressive.THE WHOLE PROCESS of viewing a Silent Film,especially a feature length one, requires a special skill unto itself. And we are convinced that the dream-like quality of the Silent Screen leaves the viewer with a deep feeling of having truly witnessed a real life occurrence. In this case, it is the life of Christ and some of his contemporaries.WELL, DIDN'T WE? Schultz says so! That's good enough for me!NOTE * We wuz jest pulling' yer leg on this 'un. Ain't no movie actor in no pitcher show with that handle.NOTE ** Far from being truly and completely silent, all Silent Movies had at least a piano or organ as an instrument of accompaniment. The Bigger Productions, like this BEN HUR: A TALE OF THE Christ, had a whole score; which had whole orchestral accompaniment when it played the big houses downtown.

Of all motion picture genres, the ancient world epic is the only one in which the silents were usually superior to their talking counterparts. With the emotional distance of a bygone age, the pompous dialogue, not to mention the focus on the spectacular, here, if ever there was one, is a type of story best told purely in images.The 1925 Ben-Hur is probably the finest of all the 1920s epics. A lot of this is down to its (uncredited) producer, "boy-wonder" Irving Thalberg. Although there is very little consistency in the genres or kinds of story in Thalberg's productions, his hallmark seems to be that he was willing to push the boat out creatively. He never just plumped for the most commercial option, yet never lost sight of what was entertaining. Hence his pictures were almost always hits, but they were never mere instant-appeal audience-fodder. He refused to compromise on quality in any department, and in Ben-Hur the editing of Lloyd Nosler and the cinematography in particular deserve honourable mentions. Thalberg had taken over the project half-way through shooting, and it's exemplary of his belief in quality over easy profits that he recast virtually ever actor, changed the crew and scrapped the old footage, sending the budget skyrocketing but ending up with a finer finished product.Among the replacement crew was director Fred Niblo. While there are a few other directors associated with this production, they shouldn't really be counted as most of their footage was ditched when Niblo was brought on board. And he is really perfectly suited to this material. His sense of movement and rhythm, especially in crowd scenes, is exceptional. A great example is in the leper cave, when Miriam and Tirzah exit away from camera, screen left, a leper crawls towards the water from screen right, echoing their movement. Niblo was also one of the best action directors of his era, as evidenced in the highly imaginative sequence of images in the sea battle. For the chariot race the emphasis is on speed, partly because Thalberg offered a $100 prize to the winner, but also because the camera rarely takes the position of a spectator, almost constantly moving with the chariots. The excitement is heightened because the camera cars occasionally move faster when behind a chariot or slower when in front of chariot, to give the effect of dollying in on the action.Niblo was also capable of coaxing tenderness and poignancy out of the smaller scenes. He recognises that the lavish sets and masses of extras can't be a continuous backdrop, and has the sense to stage the most important interactions in front of plain backgrounds, focusing us entirely on the actors. He brings an emotional depth to many sequences – something almost impossible to achieve in this kind of picture –by holding performers in uninterrupted takes and simply allowing them to emote with subtle gestures and facial expressions. The scene in which Miriam and Tirzah find Judah asleep in the Hur palace is by far the most moving I have seen in any ancient-world epic, sound or silent. Luckily Thalberg was smart enough to keep those long takes in the picture, rather than having every second of footage not essential to the story cropped or broken up with superficial title cards. It may seem unusual to see these extended emotional sequences in a picture that doesn't spend much time on characterisation or verbal interaction, but it is a perfect use of silent cinema form nonetheless.This Ben-Hur retains the subtitle of Lew Wallace's novel – "A Tale of the Christ", and the religious angle is more integral to the story here than in the 1959 version. In 1959 Jesus was only ever shown from behind, and this is sometimes hailed as a stroke of genius. However his appearance in 1925 is even more tentative, just a hand emerging from offscreen. Of course it is very much like Niblo to use close-ups of hands to define characters, just as it very much like William Wyler (director in 1959) to film actors from behind, but I believe both portrayals owe something to the 19th century stage production, in which the actor playing Jesus kept his back to the audience. In each case this was apparently done out of a religious sense of respect, but I feel the "hands-only" Jesus of 1925 is the most effective because it shows the Christ figure purely as a presence, continuously felt but always just out of sight.Probably the only respect in which the 1959 Ben-Hur is superior to the 1925 version is in its characterisation. The later film is one of the few genuine character-driven epics, with a screenplay that delves into the depths of each relationship, going to lengths to show the different facets of each figure. By comparison the characters in 1925 are simplistic to the point of being crude. Francis X. Bushman's Messala is such an out-and-out villain it's hard for us to accept he was ever likable, whereas we can totally believe that Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd were childhood friends. It's true that for the most part, the 1920s were still an age of one-dimensional pantomime figures, but the silent epics never tried to be deep or realistic, and any epic that tries to be will ultimately fail, even in the sound era. Instead these pictures thrive on their mood, their grace and their captivating imagery, and the realisation of this by Thalberg and Niblo make the silent Ben-Hur one of the best.

This film is a must see; it's a stunning visual achievement. The most expensive silent film ever made. The staggeringly elaborate sets, the camera-work, the Technicolor segments, and the special effects are absolutely spectacular.The sea battle and chariot race sequences are better here than they are in the more famous sound version. 'Breezy' Eason, the race's second unit director had 62 assistant directors working on the fantastic chariot race sequence, one of whom was William Wyler, who made the sound version of 'Ben Hur' in 1959, and who repeated much of what we see in these two seminal parts of both versions. The chariot race camera work is amazing: it's exciting, tight, fast and expertly edited, even including shots of horses seen from the ground looking up. No wonder the race's editing was so remarkable -- 200,000 feet of shot film was cut to 750 feet! Action director Eason was notorious for his cavalier treatment of animal safety, so much so that as a result of so many wounded or killed horses on his 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' (1936), the Humane Society started monitoring animal safety during film shooting. Here, at the end of the race we see a massive pile up of chariot teams of horses, like cars on a freeway. The only really grim moment.Ramon Novarro does more than a creditable job as Judah, Ben-Hur, if you can get that image of the huskier Charlton Heston out of your mind. Actually, Ramon does a better job-- he's not playing his own stereotype. He didn't have much later success in films, though you can find him in an episode of Boris Karloff's 'Thriller' (1962) TV show. May McAvoy, who plays Esther, left films when sound came in, but returned in the forties to only uncredited parts. Betty Bronson, after her star turn 'Peter Pan' (1924) appears briefly here as a beatific (but very unpregnant looking) Mary mother of Jesus during the opening Nativity sequences (some in color!). You can see her still playing pixie girls as Gene Autry's love interest in 'Yodelin' Kid from Pine Ridge' (1937).The person who had the most continuing success was Francis X. Bushman (Massala), whom we are used to seeing as an old man in 50s and 60s TV shows and junk movies. As the villain, he was not in this movie enough, or was bad enough, as was Stephen Boyd in the sound version. Here his face and makeup reminded me of Al Lewis as 'Grandpa' in 'The Munsters.' He can be seen as the police chief in the first self-titled Dick Tracy serial (1937).A real bonus to the film, in the crystal clear four disk set from M-G-M is the new magnificent music soundtrack by Carl Davis, composer of not only the TV series 'World at War', but of original scores for 'Intolerance' (1916), 'Greed' (1924), 'The Thief of Bagdad' (1924), 'The Phantom of the Opera' (1924), 'The General' (1927) and 'Napoleon' (1927). Needless to say he knows how to fit the score to the film; knowing when to put it in the background, as he does in the extended touching emotional scene where Judah's mother and sister discover him sleeping, and when to pump it up into the foreground as he does for the chariot race. Great placement and use of music! A cast of 125,000 people. Almost two and a half hours, that go by quickly. The whole story told as in the remake, but with a little more added here. This version emphasizes the expectations the Jewish people had for a Deliverer, and it also adds depth to the revolutionary message of Christianity. Unbelievable sets, great camera-work, action and visual story telling. You've got to give it at least an 8.So why not a 10? Ultimately it's not up to the great 10s of Silent German Cinema. Here we get a film about Ben 'Horatio Alger' Hur's fall and rise to fame and fortune told in easy and continuing coincidences, especially in the final ten minutes, with a lot of overwrought acting not very much controlled by silent film director Niblo.But still, this a definite must see silent film for the magnificent achievement that it is. I give it an 8.