Ben-Hur (English) In Dual Audio Hindi
Willette Caires
Ben-Hur was originally shown with 6-track-magnetic audio (left, left-center, center, center-right, right and mono-surround), so a 5.1-mix can be made from that. But as far as I know, the 5.1-track from the old DVD was an upmix from a stereo source and not from the 6-track sources. We believe the new issue has improved upon that. To my ear it sounds more defined.
A handsome tri-fold case with full-color photographs houses the three Blu-ray discs. The movie itself is wisely spread across two BD-50s to ensure maximum quality, and the bulk of special features are housed on the third disc. Video codec is 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 and the default audio is English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Upon insertion of the disc, the full-motion menu with music immediately pops up; no previews or promos precede it.
'Ben-Hur' is the quintessential epic, and this spectacular 50th Anniversary Edition from Warner may just be the quintessential Blu-ray collector's set. Boasting arguably the finest 1080p transfer of any classic film, exceptional audio, supplements galore, two handsomely produced hardcover volumes, and classy packaging, this is without question one of the top Blu-ray releases of the year and a must-own for every film aficionado. So clear some shelf space and give this thrilling Academy Award-winning film a prominent spot in your library, and enjoy the passion, spectacle, and, above all, the eye-popping, fully restored image of one of Hollywood's grandest and greatest achievements.
Producer: Sam Zimbalist
Director: William Wyler
Screenplay: Karl Tunberg
Production Design: Edward C. Carfagno
Cinematography: Robert Surtees
Costume Design: Elizabeth Haffenden
Film Editing: Ralph Winters
Original Music: Miklos Rozsa
Principal Cast: Charlton Heston (Judah Ben Hur), Stephen Boyd (Mesala), Jack Hawkins (Quintus Arrius), Haya Harareet (Esther), Hugh Griffith (Sheik Ilderim)
C-223m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning. Descriptive video.
by Scott McGee Ben-Hur (1959) According to official Oscar historian Robert Osborne, the April 4, 1960 telecast of the Academy Award ceremony was the last time during the first 60 years that the motion picture industry sponsored the annual proceedings. It is not difficult to see why. The financial burden of putting on the show had become too heavy, and due to MGM's dual big wins with Gigi (1958) and Ben-Hur (1959), it had become increasingly difficult to convince studios to pay for an expensive telecast that largely showcased a rival studio's pictures. But despite MGM's exalted position in Hollywood, the studio's decision to bring Lew Wallace's sprawling epic novel Ben-Hur to the screen was risky. The inspiration to make a new version of Ben-Hur was influenced by Cecil B. DeMille's remake of his own The Ten Commandments, a huge box office bonanza for Paramount in 1956. The MGM brass figured a remake of their 1925 sword and sandal epic (Ramon Novarro played the title role) would most likely reap similar profits. But at the time, the once-mighty studio was teetering on financial ruin. The competition with television and the effects of the 1948 consent decrees, those that divested the studios of their theater chains, had its greatest impact on mega-studios like MGM. So the decision to pour $15 million into a project that had been filmed once already in 1925 had a few Hollywood insiders smelling blood-red ink. Still, Ben-Hur, what director William Wyler termed "Hollywood's first intimate spectacle," turned out to be an enormous financial and critical success, grossing $37 million domestically and $80 million worldwide in its initial run. It broke box office records everywhere, sustaining Leo the Lion's famous roar above the bankruptcy wolves for another decade or so. Once it came time for the Academy Awards, Ben-Hur led the pack with twelve nominations. It eventually won eleven Oscars from its twelve nominations, losing the screenplay category only because of a credit dispute among its authors, Karl Tunberg and Christopher Fry. Tunberg got sole screenwriting credit, even though Fry, who was on the set with director William Wyler throughout the production, worked extensively on the script as well. Gore Vidal also contributed to the screenplay but was also denied credit by the Writers Guild. Ben-Hur still holds the title of a single movie with the most Oscars, although another epic, Titanic (1997), tied the record nearly 40 years later. When Charlton Heston appeared on the list of nominees for Best Actor, many in Hollywood were surprised because they didn't think his performance matched the caliber of Jack Lemmon's in Some Like It Hot or Laurence Harvey's in Room at the Top or even James Stewart's in Anatomy of a Murder. Lemmon's chances, in particular, were probably hampered by the fact that Some Like It Hot failed to score a Best Picture nomination and comedies are usually overlooked as serious contenders. Despite that minor controversy, columnists predicted that Heston would enjoy an easy chariot ride to the winner's podium on Oscar night, since everyone expected a landslide victory for Ben-Hur. Indeed, Heston did win for the night, and he even managed to surprise some head honchos when he included in his acceptance speech gratitude towards the film's uncredited writer, Christopher Fry. It was the Writers Guild, specifically, that was angry with Heston for mentioning Fry, after all the trouble that the Guild went through over determining screenplay credit. But Heston insisted that Fry had been on the set regularly, helping him with his characterization. Upon meeting with the press after his acceptance speech, a reporter asked Heston backstage which scene in Ben-Hur he enjoyed filming the most, apparently alluding to the chariot race that had everyone in Hollywood talking for months. The winner quickly responded, "I didn't enjoy any of it. It was hard work." Heston did like winning though and commented to his fellow winner and director, William Wyler, "I guess this is old hat to you." Wyler, a three-time winner, retorted, "Chuck, it never gets old hat."Producer: Sam ZimbalistDirector: William WylerScreenplay: Karl TunbergProduction Design: Edward C. CarfagnoCinematography: Robert SurteesCostume Design: Elizabeth HaffendenFilm Editing: Ralph WintersOriginal Music: Miklos Rozsa Principal Cast: Charlton Heston (Judah Ben Hur), Stephen Boyd (Mesala), Jack Hawkins (Quintus Arrius), Haya Harareet (Esther), Hugh Griffith (Sheik Ilderim)C-223m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning. Descriptive video.by Scott McGee Critics' Corner - Ben-Hur December 30, 2008
Ben-Hur was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and winner of 11 (the most awards for a single film up to that point): Best Picture, Director, Actor (Charlton Heston), Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Art Direction-Set Decoration (Color), Cinematography (Color), Costume Design (Color), Special Effects, Editing, Music, Sound. The controversy over the writing credit helped prevent Karl Tunberg from winning the adapted screenplay award.
It won Best Film from any Source at the British Academy Awards
Best Foreign Production in the David Di Donatello Awards, the Italian film industry's highest honor.
Other honors for Ben-Hur include:
- Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement Award for William Wyler
- Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture Drama, Director, and Supporting Actor (Stephen Boyd); nomination for Best Actor (Heston)
- A Grammy nomination to Miklós Rózsa for Best Soundtrack Album
- National Board of Review Best Supporting Actor Award (Griffith) and Special Citation to Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt for direction of the chariot race
- New York Film Critics Award for Best Film
- Writers Guild of America nomination for Best Written American Drama to Karl Tunberg, the only name the Guild would allow on the credits
- Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing from the Motion Picture Sound Editors USA
In 2004, Ben-Hur was chosen by the National Film Preservation Board to be one of the movies preserved in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.
The film ranked #72 in the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the 100 greatest movies; in the updated (2007) list, it was dropped to #100.
The Critics' Corner: BEN-HUR
"Within the expansive format of the so-called 'blockbuster' spectacle film, which generally provokes a sublimation of sensibility to action and pageantry, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and William Wyler have managed to engineer a remarkably intelligent and engrossing human drama.... Without for one moment neglecting the tempting opportunities for thundering scenes of massive movement and mob excitement that are abundantly contained in the famous novel of Gen. Lew Wallace, upon which this picture is based, Mr. Wyler and his money-free producers have smartly and effectively laid stress on the powerful and meaningful personal conflicts that are strong in this old heroic tale."
Bosley Crowther, New York Times, November 19, 1959
"Out of this sea of celluloid, a masterful director, William Wyler, has fished a whale of a picture, the biggest and the best of Hollywood's super-spectacles. ... The film has its failures. The movie hero is pretty much an overgrown boy scout who never experiences the moral struggles that beset the hero of the book. Then, too, the story sometimes lags-not, oddly enough, because it is too long but because it is too short. For the final script, M-G-M eliminated an entire subplot that gives the middle of the story its shape and suspense. But the religious theme is handled with rare restraint and good taste. ... The script...is well ordered, and its lines sometimes sing with good rhetoric and quiet poetry. The actors, for the most part, play in the grand manner, but with controlled firmness. ... [Wyler's] wit, intelligence and formal instinct are almost everywhere in evidence, and he has set a standard of excellence by which coming generations of screen spectacles can expect to be measured."
Time, November 30, 1959
"It is supremely ironic that a director who later claimed that Ben-Hur 'was never intended to be anything more or less than an adventure story with no artistic pretensions at all' should have given the cinema the richest, and perhaps noblest, historical epic of all."
Derek Elley, The Epic Film: Myth and History (Routledge, 1984)
"Although a bit like a four-hour Sunday school lesson, Ben-Hur is not without its compensations, above all, of course, the chariot race.... The rest is made interesting by the most sexually ambivalent characters sporting togas this side of Satyricon [1969]. When not fondling phallic substitutes, Heston and Boyd gaze admiringly into each other's eyes, but when they fall outwell, hell hath no fury like a closet queen scorned. ... The movie could be trying to say that for some people religion is an escape from their sexuality, but it seems unlikely."
Scott Meek, Time Out Film Guide (Penguin, 2000)
"The 1959 film is less a tale of the Christ than a spectacle cleverly navigating the political minefields of the day. Its themes include the threatened extinction of the Jews, the value of passive resistance, the evils of informing, and Jewish-Arab solidarity. Hollywood liberalism meets Christian conservatism without rustling anyone's feathers, an achievement more awesome than racing chariots, battling pirates, and vanishing leprosy."
Gary Giddins, New York Sun, September 27, 2005
Dwight Macdonald in Esquire was one of the very few mainstream critics to pan the film, saying it was like watching a freight train go by and complaining that the story had switched the responsibility for Christ's death from the Jews to the Romans, a remark that earned him about 100 letters of protest and which he retracted, with some qualification, a few years later in his review of King of Kings (1961).
"Big-budget epic is quite watchable, but a bit syrupy once Messala is no longer around. The chariot-race sequence and the sea battle still hold up nicely, but there is nothing else exciting in the picture."
- Danny Peary, Guide For the Film Fanatic
"Lew Wallace's hectic potboiler-classic has everything - even leprosy. M-G-M laid on the cash and William Wyler directed, with several busy assistants...Has anyone ever been able to detect the contributions to the script of Gore Vidal, Christopher Fry, and S. N. Behrman? Could they?"
- Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies
"Ben-Hur climaxed a wave of religious epics in the 1950s, and I suppose the trend speaks to a real devoutness in the nation. If only those films' directors had anything like vision or faith in their minds. It remains one of the great ironies of film history that Hollywood was making this kind of heavenly-choir bombast at exactly the time when Robert Bresson was directing some of the most genuinely spiritual films ever made...The rare passages of excitement, like the chariot race, are delivered by unit directors Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt. If only they had been given the whole project."
- David Thomson, Have You Seen...?
"One of the great movie spectacles, and a tour de force for its star, Charlton Heston. In remaking the 1927 silent classic, quality-conscious director William Wyler shines the old chestnut up."
- TV Guide
"The most tasteful and visually exciting film spectacle yet produced by an American company."
- Albert Johnson, Film Quarterly
"Spectacular without being a spectacle...not only is it not simple-minded, it is downright literate."
- Saturday Review
"A major motion picture phenomenon."
- Films in Review
compiled by Rob Nixon Critics' Corner - Ben-Hur Awards and HonorsBen-Hur was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and winner of 11 (the most awards for a single film up to that point): Best Picture, Director, Actor (Charlton Heston), Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Art Direction-Set Decoration (Color), Cinematography (Color), Costume Design (Color), Special Effects, Editing, Music, Sound. The controversy over the writing credit helped prevent Karl Tunberg from winning the adapted screenplay award.It won Best Film from any Source at the British Academy AwardsBest Foreign Production in the David Di Donatello Awards, the Italian film industry's highest honor. Other honors for Ben-Hur include:- Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement Award for William Wyler- Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture Drama, Director, and Supporting Actor (Stephen Boyd); nomination for Best Actor (Heston)- A Grammy nomination to Miklós Rózsa for Best Soundtrack Album- National Board of Review Best Supporting Actor Award (Griffith) and Special Citation to Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt for direction of the chariot race- New York Film Critics Award for Best Film- Writers Guild of America nomination for Best Written American Drama to Karl Tunberg, the only name the Guild would allow on the credits- Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing from the Motion Picture Sound Editors USAIn 2004, Ben-Hur was chosen by the National Film Preservation Board to be one of the movies preserved in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.The film ranked #72 in the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the 100 greatest movies; in the updated (2007) list, it was dropped to #100.The Critics' Corner: BEN-HUR"Within the expansive format of the so-called 'blockbuster' spectacle film, which generally provokes a sublimation of sensibility to action and pageantry, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and William Wyler have managed to engineer a remarkably intelligent and engrossing human drama.... Without for one moment neglecting the tempting opportunities for thundering scenes of massive movement and mob excitement that are abundantly contained in the famous novel of Gen. Lew Wallace, upon which this picture is based, Mr. Wyler and his money-free producers have smartly and effectively laid stress on the powerful and meaningful personal conflicts that are strong in this old heroic tale." Bosley Crowther, New York Times, November 19, 1959"Out of this sea of celluloid, a masterful director, William Wyler, has fished a whale of a picture, the biggest and the best of Hollywood's super-spectacles. ... The film has its failures. The movie hero is pretty much an overgrown boy scout who never experiences the moral struggles that beset the hero of the book. Then, too, the story sometimes lags-not, oddly enough, because it is too long but because it is too short. For the final script, M-G-M eliminated an entire subplot that gives the middle of the story its shape and suspense. But the religious theme is handled with rare restraint and good taste. ... The script...is well ordered, and its lines sometimes sing with good rhetoric and quiet poetry. The actors, for the most part, play in the grand manner, but with controlled firmness. ... [Wyler's] wit, intelligence and formal instinct are almost everywhere in evidence, and he has set a standard of excellence by which coming generations of screen spectacles can expect to be measured." Time, November 30, 1959 "It is supremely ironic that a director who later claimed that Ben-Hur 'was never intended to be anything more or less than an adventure story with no artistic pretensions at all' should have given the cinema the richest, and perhaps noblest, historical epic of all." Derek Elley, The Epic Film: Myth and History (Routledge, 1984)"Although a bit like a four-hour Sunday school lesson, Ben-Hur is not without its compensations, above all, of course, the chariot race.... The rest is made interesting by the most sexually ambivalent characters sporting togas this side of Satyricon [1969]. When not fondling phallic substitutes, Heston and Boyd gaze admiringly into each other's eyes, but when they fall outwell, hell hath no fury like a closet queen scorned. ... The movie could be trying to say that for some people religion is an escape from their sexuality, but it seems unlikely." Scott Meek, Time Out Film Guide (Penguin, 2000)"The 1959 film is less a tale of the Christ than a spectacle cleverly navigating the political minefields of the day. Its themes include the threatened extinction of the Jews, the value of passive resistance, the evils of informing, and Jewish-Arab solidarity. Hollywood liberalism meets Christian conservatism without rustling anyone's feathers, an achievement more awesome than racing chariots, battling pirates, and vanishing leprosy." Gary Giddins, New York Sun, September 27, 2005Dwight Macdonald in Esquire was one of the very few mainstream critics to pan the film, saying it was like watching a freight train go by and complaining that the story had switched the responsibility for Christ's death from the Jews to the Romans, a remark that earned him about 100 letters of protest and which he retracted, with some qualification, a few years later in his review of King of Kings (1961). "Big-budget epic is quite watchable, but a bit syrupy once Messala is no longer around. The chariot-race sequence and the sea battle still hold up nicely, but there is nothing else exciting in the picture." - Danny Peary, Guide For the Film Fanatic"Lew Wallace's hectic potboiler-classic has everything - even leprosy. M-G-M laid on the cash and William Wyler directed, with several busy assistants...Has anyone ever been able to detect the contributions to the script of Gore Vidal, Christopher Fry, and S. N. Behrman? Could they?" - Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies"Ben-Hur climaxed a wave of religious epics in the 1950s, and I suppose the trend speaks to a real devoutness in the nation. If only those films' directors had anything like vision or faith in their minds. It remains one of the great ironies of film history that Hollywood was making this kind of heavenly-choir bombast at exactly the time when Robert Bresson was directing some of the most genuinely spiritual films ever made...The rare passages of excitement, like the chariot race, are delivered by unit directors Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt. If only they had been given the whole project."- David Thomson, Have You Seen...? "One of the great movie spectacles, and a tour de force for its star, Charlton Heston. In remaking the 1927 silent classic, quality-conscious director William Wyler shines the old chestnut up." - TV Guide"The most tasteful and visually exciting film spectacle yet produced by an American company."- Albert Johnson, Film Quarterly"Spectacular without being a spectacle...not only is it not simple-minded, it is downright literate."- Saturday Review "A major motion picture phenomenon."- Films in Reviewcompiled by Rob Nixon Ben-Hur (1959) - DVD - Ben-Hur March 14, 2001
Released on the advent of Wyler's 100th birthday (he died in 1981) the release is something of a milestone with its beautifully remastered picture and extraordinary special features. Wyler's other classic films include: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Roman Holiday (1953), Jezebel (1938), The Heiress (1949), and Wuthering Heights (1939), many of which can also be found on DVD. Planning a centennial celebration is producer Amy Lehr, Wyler's Granddaughter, who notes that, Ben-Hur won 11 Academy Awards in all - a record that made history. It's a must-see film".
Presented here on one dual-sided disc, in a stunning transfer with glorious color and remastered digital 5.1 surround sound, Ben-Hur is ready for a new generation of to discover. This special edition DVD includes a commentary by Charlton Heston, a documentary on the film entitled, Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic, rare screen test footage of potential and final cast members Leslie Nielson, Cesare Danova and Haya Harareet, the original Overture and Entr'acte music, an on-the-set photo gallery, and other special features.
Ben-Hur (1959) - DVD - Ben-Hur Audiences enthralled by 2000 Oscar nominee Gladiator will have another champion to cheer on March 14, when director William Wyler's Oscar Winner Ben-Hur (1959) makes its DVD debut. An obvious inspiration for Ridley Scott's epic, Ben-Hur was the biggest budgeted film of all time when originally released and created a huge impact that still reverberates through the entertainment world today--especially the lengthy, climactic chariot race, easily one of the most exciting scenes in cinema history.Released on the advent of Wyler's 100th birthday (he died in 1981) the release is something of a milestone with its beautifully remastered picture and extraordinary special features. Wyler's other classic films include: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Roman Holiday (1953), Jezebel (1938), The Heiress (1949), and Wuthering Heights (1939), many of which can also be found on DVD. Planning a centennial celebration is producer Amy Lehr, Wyler's Granddaughter, who notes that, Ben-Hur won 11 Academy Awards in all - a record that made history. It's a must-see film". Presented here on one dual-sided disc, in a stunning transfer with glorious color and remastered digital 5.1 surround sound, Ben-Hur is ready for a new generation of to discover. This special edition DVD includes a commentary by Charlton Heston, a documentary on the film entitled, Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic, rare screen test footage of potential and final cast members Leslie Nielson, Cesare Danova and Haya Harareet, the original Overture and Entr'acte music, an on-the-set photo gallery, and other special features. Martha Scott, 1914-2003 June 10, 2003
Martha Ellen Scott was born in Jamesport, Missouri on September 24, 1914, and raised in Kansas City, where a high school teacher encouraged her interest in acting. She majored in drama at the University of Michigan and after graduation, she joined The Globe Theatre Troupe, a stock company that performed truncated Shakespeare at the Chicago World's Fair in between 1933-34. She went to New York soon after and found work in radio and stock before playing making her breakthrough as Emily Webb in Our Town. When the play opened on Broadway in February 1938, Scott received glowing reviews in the pivotal role of Emily, the wistful girl-next-door in Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, who marries her high school sweetheart, dies in pregnancy and gets to relive a single day back on Earth. Her stage success brought her to Hollywood, where she continued her role in Sam Wood's film adaptation of Out Town (1940). Scott received an Academy Award nomination for best actress and was immediately hailed as the year's new female discovery.
She gave nicely understated performances in her next few films: as Jane Peyton Howard in Frank Lloyd's historical The Howards of Virginia (1940), opposite Cary Grant; the dedicated school teacher in Tay Garnett's Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941) in which she aged convincingly from 17 to 85; and as a devoted wife to preacher Frederic March in Irving Rapper's warm family drama One Foot in Heaven (1941). Sadly, Scott's maturity and sensitivity ran against the glamour-girl persona that was popular in the '40s (best embodied by stars like Lana Turner and Veronica Lake) and her film appearances were few and far between for the remainder of the decade.
Her fortunes brightened in the '50s, when she found roles in major productions, such as a suburban wife trapped in her home by fugitives, led by Humphrey Bogart, in William Wyler's taut The Desperate Hours (1955) and played Charlton Heston's mother in the Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments (1956) and again for William Wyler in Ben-Hur (1959). Scott found steady work for the next 30 years in matronly roles, most notably on television, where she played Bob Newhart's mother on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978) and the mother of Sue Ellen Ewing on Dallas (1978-1991). Her second husband, pianist and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Mel Powell, died in 1998. Survivors include a son and two daughters.
by Michael T. Toole Martha Scott, 1914-2003 Martha Scott, the actress who originated the role of Emily Webb in the stage and film versions of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning Our Town died on May 28 at a hospital in Van Nuys, California due to natural causes. She was 88. Martha Ellen Scott was born in Jamesport, Missouri on September 24, 1914, and raised in Kansas City, where a high school teacher encouraged her interest in acting. She majored in drama at the University of Michigan and after graduation, she joined The Globe Theatre Troupe, a stock company that performed truncated Shakespeare at the Chicago World's Fair in between 1933-34. She went to New York soon after and found work in radio and stock before playing making her breakthrough as Emily Webb in Our Town. When the play opened on Broadway in February 1938, Scott received glowing reviews in the pivotal role of Emily, the wistful girl-next-door in Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, who marries her high school sweetheart, dies in pregnancy and gets to relive a single day back on Earth. Her stage success brought her to Hollywood, where she continued her role in Sam Wood's film adaptation of Out Town (1940). Scott received an Academy Award nomination for best actress and was immediately hailed as the year's new female discovery. She gave nicely understated performances in her next few films: as Jane Peyton Howard in Frank Lloyd's historical The Howards of Virginia (1940), opposite Cary Grant; the dedicated school teacher in Tay Garnett's Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941) in which she aged convincingly from 17 to 85; and as a devoted wife to preacher Frederic March in Irving Rapper's warm family drama One Foot in Heaven (1941). Sadly, Scott's maturity and sensitivity ran against the glamour-girl persona that was popular in the '40s (best embodied by stars like Lana Turner and Veronica Lake) and her film appearances were few and far between for the remainder of the decade.Her fortunes brightened in the '50s, when she found roles in major productions, such as a suburban wife trapped in her home by fugitives, led by Humphrey Bogart, in William Wyler's taut The Desperate Hours (1955) and played Charlton Heston's mother in the Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments (1956) and again for William Wyler in Ben-Hur (1959). Scott found steady work for the next 30 years in matronly roles, most notably on television, where she played Bob Newhart's mother on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978) and the mother of Sue Ellen Ewing on Dallas (1978-1991). Her second husband, pianist and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Mel Powell, died in 1998. Survivors include a son and two daughters. by Michael T. Toole Quotes If you were not a bride I would kiss you goodbye. - Judah Ben-Hur If I were not a bride, there would be no goodbyes to be said. - Esther Are they still alive? - Drusus The jailer in that wing will know. - Jailer1 Oh, they're alive. The food keeps disappearing. - Jailer2 Judah Ben Hur! You've come back to us like a returning faith! I want to laugh again, Judah. - Simonides We will laugh. - Judah Ben-Hur Laugh, amidst the dust and cobwebs... - Simonides Balthasar is a good man. But until all men are like him, we must keep our swords bright! - Ilderim And our intentions true! So I must leave you. - Judah Ben-Hur One last thought... there is no law in the arena. Many are killed. I hope to see you again, Judah Ben-Hur. - Ilderim A grown man knows the world he lives in. For the moment, that world is Rome. - Pontius Pilate Trivia MGM wanted an authentic-looking Roman boat for the live battle scenes. To design the boats, they hired a person who had spent his whole career studying Roman naval architecture. When he presented his designs to the MGM engineers, Mauro Zambuto (set engineer) exclaimed, "But this is top heavy! It will sink!" They built the boat anyway and launched it in the ocean, and at first it seemed to float. Then however, a little wave came a long, a wake from another boat, splashed against the highly unstable boat, and tipped it over. MGM then put the boat in a large pond with a huge painted sky backdrop. To steady the boat, they ran cables from the bottom of the boat to anchors on the bottom of the pond.