Ben-hur 1925 Full Movie
Vella Massart
So, about fifteen years and a few hundred silent films later, I was looking forward to revisiting Ben-Hur and seeing what I missed the first time around. This is going to be a mammoth review with background information and a ruthless dissection of the film in comparison to its more famous 1959 remake.
Second, I will be reviewing this film from a secular point of view. While I have no wish to poke fun at actual religious content, I will be having a bit of fun with the Hollywoodization of religious content. I beg your indulgence in this regard.
Third, I will be jumping around filming periods. For the sake of a simple narrative, I will be referring to the American film industry in general as Hollywood (even if the office in question was in New York or New Jersey). I will also be referring to all motion picture studios by their most common modern names.
The finished film was an enormous hit but took years to earn back its budget. However, as publicity for the fledgling studio, it was priceless. Mayer and Thalberg were able to rescue a blockbuster in freefall and come out of the mess with an acclaimed and popular picture. It helped establish MGM as a power player in short order.
Since the Ben-Hur ruling, the popular novel and stage play remained out of reach for most studios. The price was simply too high. The producers who owned both the theatrical and film rights were demanding $1 million for the privilege of making a Ben-Hur movie, which was more than the entire budget of a major epic.
The next logical choice was to have Rex Ingram direct and Ramon Novarro star. Ingram could handle big movies with big budgets, he had a winning collaboration going with Novarro and both men were very excited about the story. In fact, Ingram had arranged for a clause in his contract to allow him to be loaned out to whichever studio won the Ben-Hur bidding war. The problem: Ingram was in a feud with June Mathis.
Finally, we have the leading man. George Walsh? He had a few hits under his belt, his prospects were looking up and his brother, Raoul, was an important director but young George was by no means a major player.
The production started cheerfully enough but that soon ended. Maybe it was the Italian scenery. Maybe it was the script. Maybe everyone was just plain fed up. What really matters for purpose of our tale is that Ben-Hur was not so much a film set as it was a collection of warring factions.
Add to this toxic mixture a strong dose of political unrest and labor disputes and you have a recipe for disaster. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini himself was rumored to have stirred the pot in the background.
At least three people (Bushman, Myers and Mussolini) found pleasure in making the film. For most everyone else, it was war. The Italian shoot descended into chaos but what Mathis and Brabin had not considered was that Goldwyn was about to become the G in MGM. The dynamic duo of Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer were tasked with making Ben-Hur a success. What they found was money pit.
The bloodbath began immediately. The MGM team brought in a new director, Fred Niblo, who is probably best remembered for The Mark of Zorro. (Rex Ingram was again passed over. In addition to feuding with Mathis, he also feuded with Mayer. Busy man.) They brought in two new screenwriters (Mathis still had not delivered a completed screenplay), Bess Meredyth and Carey Wilson. Most significantly, they decided to cast new leads. The role of Judah Ben-Hur came down to a choice between Ramon Novarro and John Gilbert. Novarro was known as the calmer, more cooperative and generally less neurotic of the two. Considering the drama-prone set, that was likely enough to put him over. The coveted role of Judah Ben-Hur was finally his.
That being said, by keeping Walsh occupied with Ben-Hur just when his career was building momentum and then unceremoniously tossing him off the project, MGM did irreparable damage to his prospects. Walsh probably did need to go (the June Mathis faction had to be uprooted) but the blow could have been softened by immediately casting him in a different film.
Gertrude Olmstead was replaced with May McAvoy, hot off her performance opposite Richard Barthelmess in The Enchanted Cottage. She also was not afraid to go toe-to-toe with studio bosses (she had just dumped Paramount and had become one of the few successful freelancers of the silent era, Valentino could have learned from her) but she kept a relatively low profile on the set of Ben-Hur. McAvoy later stated that she thought the part was dull but she knew that appearing in a prestige production would worth it for the exposure. She was correct.
Bushman also recalled that a stuntman was killed in the chariot race scenes shot in Italy, which were later scrapped in favor of the footage shot in California. The material was absolutely stunning but the beauty came at a price. Second-unit director Breezy Eason was ruthless with both stuntmen and horses. (His work Charge of the Light Brigade racked up so many equine injuries and deaths that new rules were put in place to protect animal actors.)
The shoot was as taxing to the body as it was to the emotions. Novarro had to endure retake after retake (over thirty in all!) of scenes in which Roman soldiers dragged him around by the hair. And then there were the makeup problems. Collodion was used to make his skin look parched in these scenes and when he removed it, sometimes his skin went with it.
Well, that was enough of the cold, it was time for heat. Novarro later stated that he still had scars from Ben-Hur. The scene? The script called for Novarro to leap through some burning sailcloth in order to save a Roman commander. I am imagining the conversation.
The injuries were not isolated to the cast. While in Italy, Mayer developed an abscessed tooth (this was before antibiotics, remember) and ended up having to have tooth after tooth pulled as the infection spread. He left Italy for his health but kept up with the production via telegram. While in Germany, he arranged a screening of The Saga of Gosta Berling and decided to import the leading lady, some actress named Greta Garbo.
The film opens with a standard Protestant Lite version of the birth of Jesus and fifteen minutes pass before the story begins in earnest. Betty Bronson (formerly Peter Pan) plays Mary as a sort of serene female Obi-wan Kenobi, able to cause everyone around her to bend to her will. The holy baby is duly born in Technicolor splendor with the expected number of wise men in attendance and then we fast-forward some years to Jerusalem under the Roman yoke.
Judah Ben-Hur (Ramon Novarro) is a prince of a guy and an actual prince. He lives with his mother (Claire McDowell) and little sister Tirzah (Kathleen Key). In the marketplace, Judah runs into Esther (May McAvoy). He helps her catch her escaped dove and much silent movie bird smooching commences. (The weird silent movie bird thing is a particular pet peeve of mine.) However, Esther is leaving the city and Judah is off to find his newly-returned childhood friend, Messala the Roman (Francis X. Bushman).
It seems that a sheik is looking for someone to drive his chariot and hopes that Judah will do the honors. Judah refuses until he hears that his opponent will be Messala. With nothing to live for but revenge, our hero decides to crush his enemy using his own weapons.
It becomes a race against time. Esther much retrieve his mother and sister from the frightening Valley of the Lepers and get them to Jerusalem in time to be healed. Judah must get his army to the city in time to save the king. Of course, we know that he will be too late but Esther succeeds in her mission. The reunited Hur family decide to become Christians and the film ends with a smiles and religious imagery.
Now, I may have cut a bit from the synopsis but not much. The story seems a bit choppy because it is. The original book was a whopping tale and there was much to cut but even with the story cut to the bone, it is still a rather long and involved tale. Further, there are certain aspects to the novel that make is far more challenging than your average book-to-film adaptation.
The problem in this case is that story of Ben-Hur has basic structural flaws and every film adaptation inherits these flaws as there is no way to restructure the story without the whole edifice crashing down.
Out of an abundance of caution (understandable, by the way) MGM played things so safe with the portrayal of Jesus that an alien seeing this movie would be hard pressed to actually understand what Jesus taught and why it was important. Again, I do not blame MGM for this as the topic is highly emotional.
Again, I must emphasize that your mileage may vary with these scenes and it depends very much on your belief system but I feel that by playing it safe and staying on the fence, both Lew Wallace and MGM wasted a chance to make a stronger story. In short, I wish they had either entirely eliminated the religious narrative or increased it dramatically so that it is clearer why Judah converts. (The original novel is more religious than the film but it still has that same generic quality to it.) If you like these religious elements, fine. However, please realize that the enjoyment is not universal.
Very little of the Italian footage made it into the final film. The California production was essentially the third time that Ben-Hur had been restarted from scratch. As it turned out, the third time was the charm.
If I had to put my finger on a precise style for the films design, I would say that it is like a living medieval religious portrait. The headdresses and tunics have a decidedly Dark Age flavor, as do the portrayals of the holy characters. Internal consistency of design is underappreciated but extremely important. There are many films with gorgeous sets and costumes that are a mishmash of whatever the designers liked. These disparate elements can be jarring and pull the viewer out of the film.
The two main set pieces of Ben-Hur are the naval battle between Romans and pirates and the chariot race between Messala and Judah. Often, famous scenes do not live up to their reputation but I am happy to report that both the ship battle and the raise exceed all expectations.
c80f0f1006