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72. Ben-Hur     (1959) directed by William Wyler Next: #71. Forrest Gump Prev: #73. Wuthering Heights

My Thoughts Before I Watched It

In lieu of describing my whining about the 3:42 running time, I'm going to tell you a fun little Charlton Heston-related story that you'll enjoy. For a while I maintained the web site for the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge (harvard.com). While my predecessor Jill was running it, there was apparently a speech delivered by the great man at Harvard University in which he, I assume, lambasted Clinton, bemoaned the lack of morals in society, and called for all involved to go out and buy some more guns to keep the republic safe.

Well, coruplent talk show host Rush Limbaugh thereafter implored his fans to check out a transcript of the speech at the University's web site. Except he gave out harvard.com instead of harvard.edu. Hard to believe that a noted factchecker and beacon of accuracy as Rush could make such a simple mistake, but there you go. Jill found herself buried in emails from bewildered Limbaughites from West Virginia to Arkansas, asking in quaintly-spelled queries where the speech might be found. And where my first instinct would have been to write a speech out of thin air (which would, naturally, have found Mr. Heston taking some wildly inconsistent stances), Jill bore the ordeal with the patience of a saint, kindly directing the concerned individuals to the correct web site.

I tell you this story because a) it's a lesson for all of us that sometimes discretion in the line of one's duty is far better than you might think, and b) there's only so much I can say about my girding up to watch a 3:42 movie.

The Premise

Judah Ben-Hur (Heston) is a wealthy Jewish landowner in Roman-occupied Judea around the Year 0. He gets screwed over by the evil Roman Messala, gets thrown in as a galley slave, and makes it his life mission to find and take his revenge on Messala.

Notes and Stuff

• I know there was no Year 0. Get over it.
• This always bugs me. A movie about Jews and Romans in the Middle East, and they all try to affect British accents. Huh?!?
• After Ben-Hur is arrested, Messala goes up onto the roof to check his story about loose tiles. I'm thinking maybe he should have waited until the parade outside was over. Just what he needs - another chunk falling and hitting someone. I don't know how civilization survived before I got here.
• In all his movies, Charlton seems to spend a lot of time shouting "Let my people go", or some similar sentiment, through clenched teeth. Damned dirty apes.
• That scene in the galley was intense. The beating of the drum, the agonized expressions on the slaves' faces, the whippings...for a minute I thought I was watching a security-cam at an Indonesian Nike plant.
• I like how Cap'n Arrius changes into his regimental armor before the naval battle begins. Like it'd make a difference.
• During the battle: isn't that the Airplane! music?!? WATG, Macedonia, where disco lives forever...
• You know what else I liked during the battle? The ships are tossing boiling oil at each other, and when it's time to fling more boiling oil, they yell "Fire!" What if one landed on the deck and someone yelled "Fire!"? They'd just fling more around. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't know how civilization survived before I got here.
• There sure are a lot of sweaty, half-dressed men in this movie. The Cheers gang voted for Cool Hand Luke as the sweatiest movie of all time, but this had to be in the running. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the whole idea.
• The Emperor looks like an old, scrawny Bill Parcells, right down to the toothy insincere grin.
• He's off on the road to Judea...he certainly does get arouuuuuuund...
• On the way back to Judea, Ben-Hur visits my favorite character in the movie, the crazy Sheik. With the burping and the talk of all his wives and the fact that his face looks like shoe leather, this guy should have had a spinoff.
• The jailer only knows that Ben-Hur's mom and sis are alive because their food keeps disappearing. When did the action switch from Israel to Texas? I gotta rewind.
• It's not fair that mom and sis got sent off from the city to the Valley of the Lepers. What a cruel thing to do. It's almost like they're treating them like...well...lepers.
• Apparently, now leprosy is called Hansen's disease. (Not Hanson's disease, that is completely different). Why can't they give diseases good names anymore? Scarlet fever. St. Vitus' dance. The Black Death, for God's sake. Now everything's all Hansen's disease this and chronic fatigue that and equine encephelitis the other. If someone told you "I'm bringing over my friend Ted; he has Hansen's disease", what do you do? Wear gloves? Put out extra mints? Put down a line of tape showing the way to the bathroom? But if someone said "Hey, I'm bringing Ted over; he's a leper", you know where you stand. And you rethink who you give out your address to, no doubt.
• The chariot race is 11 minutes long; I paid attention. Also, losing in a chariot race is a lot worse than I thought. What's left of Messala is pretty grisly. Too bad that doesn't happen in current sports; it would have been nice to see Jason Sehorn dragged off the Superbowl field after getting scorched for 2 touchdowns.
• Near the very end of the movie, Ben-Hur turns down a chance to see Jesus give the Sermon on the Mount. Wow. That's like Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting turning down tickets to Game 6 of the World Series.

Best Line

Quintus Arrius: It's a strange, stubborn faith that you keep. To believe that existence has a purpose...a sane man would have learned to lose it long before this.
Judah Ben-Hur: As you have. What drove it out of you?

Summary

I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. It's a stark, simple tale of revenge and redemption, and it worked. If it had ended shortly after the chariot race, and not had the 40-odd minute windup (which turns into a religious picture!) I think it would have accomplished its mission just as well. But whatever. For a nearly 4 hour movie, there was never really a moment when I thought "They could have cut this" or "boring" or "I have to call up Ted and have him drop in". And that's a good thing.

Cast

Charlton Heston as the hero, Jack Hawkins as the kindly evil Roman, Stephen Boyd as the evil evil Roman, Haya Harrareet as the girl left behind, and Hugh Griffith as the leathery sheik.