64. Ben-Hur

William Wyler, 1959

Charlton Heton is Judah Ben-Hur, Jewish prince! I know. I know. Chuck Heston is hardly a Jewish anything, but it’s certainly more convincing than old Chuck playing a Mexican in Touch of Evil, so stay with me (although, his least fitting role is probably as Sherlock Holmes in an obscure little film called The Crucifer of Blood, but I’m only a couple of lines in and that’s a hell of a digression). Anyway, our boy Ben-Hur pisses of an old childhood friend, Messala, and, as a result, is forced into being a galley slave, after which he is taken on as a chariot driver, where he once again meets Messala, this time in the Colosseum. Along the way, Chuck even meets Jesus a time or two. This baby is the epic of all epics. Based on a novel by Lew Wallace, a Civil War general dude, it is not pulled from the Bible, but features an original story (or more original), with Biblical settings. This helps to set the film immediately apart from twice told tales like The Ten Commandments and Samson and Delilah. Of course, Ben-Hur had been made a time or two before this, back in the silent era, but this is the definitive version. Epic really isn’t even the word. This movie is massive on every conceivable level. Chuck is, of course, great. The sets and costumes are gorgeous and the action sequences are tremendous. The fire on the galley is particularly good.

Of course, I’m not kidding anyone, the big thing this film has going for it is always going to be the chariot race. This baby was done for real. Real teams of horses pulling real chariots around a, well, a set, but still, it’s freaking huge. And, what’s more, it’s not just the action climax of the film, but an emotional climax as well, which is so often missing from today’s big action blockbusters. You see, the reason Messala uses to send Chuck away is that a brick fell of his roof and just about conked some Roman governor in the noodle. This, by the way, is exactly how they talk in the film. Now, Messalah knows it was an accident and Chuckles knows that Mesala knows. Still, Messala uses it as an excuse to send Chuck to the galleys and imprison his wife and sister, who show up later in the picture riddled with leprosy (fun!). So, a big part of this movie is Chuck’s drive for revenge. Not the most Christian of messages, but there you go. It is still his lust for revenge that keeps Chuck alive through his slave days and drives him to become the greatest charioteer since, well, since the previous great charioteer.

Honestly, though, it’s a great movie and the only real word to describe it is huge. This is epic action in the old sense and really just one hell of a movie, from a time when films could take their time and offer a big story just as much about the people in it as about the gigantic happenings which build it.