Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4085 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-02-13
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Formats: Box set, Collector's Edition, Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 213 minutes

Special Features
Sub-titles: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Dutch, French, Italian, Romanian.

Synopsis
Anno Domini: the seventh year of Augustus Caesar's reign. In the Roman province of Judea, Jews return to the city of their birth for the census. A bright star in the night over Bethlehem marks the birth of Jesus Christ. Years later, Roman commander Messala (Stephen Boyd), who was brought up in Judea, takes command of the Roman garrison in Jerusalem. His Jewish boyhood friend Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) greets him. Messala is delighted. But when Judah refuses to name Jewish patriots, Messala sentences him to the slave galleys and imprisons his mother, Miriam (Martha Scott), and sister, Tirzah (Cathy O'Donnell). Judah vows revenge. In BEN-HUR, William Wyler's much-lauded epic, the story of Judah's search for his mother and sister and his quest for revenge intersects with crucial biblical events such as the Sermon on the Mount and the crucifixion. Wyler gets fine performances from Heston, Boyd, Jack Hawkins (as a Roman admiral who befriends Judah), and Hugh Griffith (as an Arab sheik who dreams of racing his beautiful white horses against Messala). Among BEN-HUR's vivid dramatic sequences are a violent sea battle and the famous chariot race that pits Judah against Messala in one of cinema's great action sequences.

Customer Reviews

A marvel of cinema, a tribute to Charlton Heston
Today the news told of the death of Charlton Heston. I have owned this set for some time and have waited for the right opportunity to watch the main feature - today seemed to be that day. In tribute I watched the 1959 version of Ben-Hur that is on this DVD set.

The 1959 version we all know is spread over two discs, and is presented in a 2.76 aspect ratio which is very wide. Visually it is mostly excellent, with great clarity and vibrancy lending an intimacy and opulence (or oppression) to scenes that compels the viewer. Colour, light and shadow are used to great effect and most scenes have a detail and depth to them that is rare, especially so for a film nearly 50 years old. As I understand it from the extras disc, the camera system used was brand new at the time, utilising a 65mm film that was about four times the size of conventional film. Alas there are some flaws, although they can be forgiven when so much is so good. The most glaring flaw is I believe a product of the DVD encoding process, where solid reds such as the Roman cloaks are jaggedly framed against high contrast backgrounds and the body of red colour is rendered unsightly. This is evident mostly in medium and close shots and at times it is so artificial looking that the cloaks appear as if they are CGI additions. Fortunately the film is so detailed and intricate it is no burden to look elsewhere to avoid occasional visual offence. I've seen this in other discs also (the bar scene in Glengarry Glen Ross with the solid red background comes to mind). That or my DVD player is showing its age. The audio is in Dolby 5.1 and is excellent throughout. The surround channels even get a bit of a workout in some scenes, adding further to the film.

The 1925 version is included on it's own disc. I watched this a few weeks ago and found it a reasonably compelling film. The story is the same, but details differ. This is apparent in the slightly different trajectory of the characters' developments, which seems to take the momentum out of some scenes. I was surprised to see the sea battle and the chariot race in there, and I was even more surprised at how good they were. Particular mention goes to the use of primitive monochrome colours used in some scenes. The sound accompaniment was a little overwhelming for me, as it never lets up. I prefer the 1959 version in every way, but it still stands up as a good film and a great extra in this set. The remaining disc is full of extras, which will probably tell you everything you might ever want to know about the two films. I found the screen tests most interesting. I must mention that there is a commentary for the 1959 version by Charlton Heston and T. G. Hatcher (film historian) that I look forward to listening to in the future.

If I've learnt anything from Charlton Heston, it is to never break a stare and never blink, just let the look convey the scene. He does that a lot as Ben-Hur. Charlton Heston is gone now, but we can hold the stare and let the eyes glaze. That is enough to convey the loss. This is most definitely one of the greatest films made and this DVD set is superb. Aside from a few forgivable flaws the film as presented here is excellent and most highly recommended.

The greatest roadshow epic of them all finally gets the DVD it deserves
The film that has become a by-word for the genre and the biggest of the roadshow movies of the fifties and sixties, 1959's Ben-Hur: A Tale of The Christ is from an audience point-of-view still a great movie, and considerably more intelligent than many modern critics would like to believe.

The best of the redemption epics of the Fifties, where suffering in the likes of The Robe or Quo Vadis makes their protagonists better in the creepily smug way that passes for movie righteousness, it turns its hero, Judah Ben-Hur, into a right s**t. Corrupted by revenge, he rejects Christ and turns away from passive resistance. Mistaken for Christ, he is himself betrayed by a friend and returns from his certain death (in this case the galleys) "like a returning faith," in the words of one of his faithful servants, but he has no faith himself. Having initially rejected Messala's overtures to "look to the west, look to Rome", indirectly the cause of his misfortunes, he becomes Romanised and a mirror image of his betrayer. The character exists in a constant state of flux and torment, journeying from slave-owning Jew to Roman slave to Roman citizen to symbol of resistance, never regaining his peace until the finale.

There was never an actor more at home in the genre than Heston, and he is in strong form here, although much of his thunder is stolen by Stephen Boyd as Messala (the role Heston was pencilled in for before Rock Hudson turned down the lead) whose intelligent portrayal of ambition is far more Oscar-worthy than Hugh Griffiths' hammily enjoyable Sheik Ilderim. Jack Hawkins and the remainder of the cast perfectly judge their roles, with Wyler's adept direction achieving a perfect balance between the religious, political and human elements of the story.

While making the most of the spectacle, he also ensures that it is often the quieter moments that most impress. An assistant director on the 1926 version's chariot race sequence, his sensitivity with actors ensures the film is driven more by emotions than events, and certainly the scenes dealing with his return to Judea are often genuinely moving without seeming so overtly manipulative as they doubtless would have in other hands.

Miklos Rozsa's score is one of the greatest ever written for any motion picture and is remarkably sensitive to the needs of the film (although Wyler did reputedly want to use Silent Night for the Nativity sequence!). The stunning ten-minute chariot race, played in real-time, has and needs no music, relying instead on the infinitely more effective roar of the crowd and thunder of hooves. The sequence also shows canny production design: the arena is suitably high-walled to limit the number of extras needed for the three-month shoot of the scene.

Ben-Hur is a film which still somewhat defies television in all its formats - the cinema is really the place to see this, the bigger the screen, the better. At an extra-wide 2.76:1 widescreen, it's not quite SuperTohoScope, but it's close, but the lack of picture area that was a major problem with definition and colour balance in the old letterboxed video releases is no problem for the DVD transfer, though it's still not recommended viewing on a small-screen TV. The film is not paced for TV but for the giant screen, inevitably draining some of its effect. Nonetheless, this is a great value-for-money special edition that may not be able to replicate the cinema experience, but does a good job of reminding you of it.

Shot under huge pressure - MGM made it clear that the future of the studio depended on the picture - the resulting stress contributed to producer Sam Zimbalist's fatal heart attack before the film was completed, and the tortuous route to the screen is well documented in this four disc set through documentaries and even screen tests for Haya Hayareet, Cesare Danova and Leslie Nielson! Even the popular stage production, which ran throughout the US for a decade grossing an astonishing $10m. In case you're wondering, diagrams are provided of how the chariot race was staged with real horses and carts!

Sadly, although extracts from the notorious unauthorised one-reel 1911 Kalem version are included on the 50-minute documentary about the making of the film, the full short - shot during a beach party, with the camera never straying from the finish line during the chariot race - is not included. The make-or-break MGM 1925 silent version is, in the Thames Silents version lovingly restored by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, and makes an interesting comparison. An even more famously chaotic production than the remake that saw several actors die during the sea battle and dozens of horses put down in the chariot race, it takes a very different approach to the story for much of its running time. Never is that more apparent than in the end, which sees Judah Ben-Hur raising an army and marching on Jerusalem to save Christ from the cross!

There's also a selection of original and widescreen trailers on the DVD are splendid examples of the classic Hollywood selling technique, hyping the film in several languages.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Prince Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston of Ten Commandments fame) was raised up with his best Roman buddy Messala (Stephen Boyd). Little did they know at the time that they would grow up become adversaries, and as a result this would lead to may adventures. In the process Judah leads many different lives that parallels and crosses the life of Jesus.

We see Judah in the mines, on the galleys, and even adopted by a roman Noble man as young Arrius. Mean time back at home his family is incarcerated by Messala leading to trials and tribulation that only Jesus can correct.
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A lot of time and money went into this MGM production that netted 11 Academy Awards, along with many others such as BAFAT, David di Donatello, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globes, Laurel, Writers Guild of America, ...etc.

You will be so intrigued that you may not notice the 212+ minutes depending on the version.

One highlight, the chariot race was reproduced many times in various forms.