Going to the movies will never be the same. Call me old-fashioned, but movies today are not like movies when I was a kid.
In 1960, when I was nine years old, my parents took me and some friends to Philadelphia to celebrate my birthday, a journey of about 50 miles, to see the greatest movie ever made . It was called Ben-Hur – A Tale of the Christ.
Never before had such a movie been made on such a grand scale. This movie was so big you couldn’t see it at your local movie theater. It had to be seen on a wide-scale panoramic movie screen. It needed the big screen and the surround-sound of a big theater. It was like nothing ever before produced. It was such a big deal that they sold souvenir booklets in the lobby to tell you all about the making of the movie. I still have my booklet today, some 63 years later!
Ben-Hur had the largest budget ($15.175 million) as well as the largest sets built on any film produced at the time. Costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden oversaw a staff of 100 wardrobe fabricators to make the costumes, and a workshop employing 200 artists and workmen provided the hundreds of friezes and statues needed in the film.
Filming commenced on May 18, 1958 and wrapped up on January 7, 1959, with shooting lasting for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. Pre-production began around October 1957, and post-production took six months. Under cinematographer Robert L. Surtees, MGM executives made the decision to film the picture in a widescreen format, though against the wishes of Director William Wyler. More than 200 camels and 2,500 horses were used in the shooting of the film, with some 10,000 extras.
The sea battle was filmed using miniatures in a huge tank on the back lot at the MGM Studios in Culver City, California. I can still see those slaves chained to their posts as they pulled on the oars. Who could ever forget the chariot race? One of the most spell-binding and dramatic movie sequences ever produced on an immense scale, before the time of computer graphics and simulations that today dominate movie making, it remains a cinematic triumph. The nine-minute chariot race has become one of cinema’s most famous sequences, and the film score, composed and conducted by Miklos Rozsa, is the longest ever composed for a film and was highly influential on cinema for more than 15 years.
Following a $14.7 million marketing effort, Ben-Hur premiered at Loew’s State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. It was the fastest grossing as well as the highest grossing film of 1959, in the process becoming the second-highest grossing film in history at the time after Gone with the Wind. It won a record 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Charlton Heston), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Hugh Griffith), and Best Cinematography (Robert Surtees), an accomplishment that was not equaled until Titanic in 1997 and then again by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 2003, before any other films equaled this achievement.
Ben-Hur was a fictional story, but based on the Bible and the life of Jesus Christ. It was a dramatic story that anyone could enjoy and for some it was even a spiritual experience. I shall never forget my ninth birthday because of that movie and even today I can still imagine the roar of the crowd and the intensity of that chariot race to the finish. The final triumph of Judah Ben-Hur over his Roman antagonist shall be forever etched in my mind.
Today we have movies we can watch on our cell-phones, our I-pads, or our televisions. We can watch them in the car, on an airplane, or just sitting on a park bench. But these will never replace the impact of the wide screen, the surround-sound, and the dramatic scenes of a movie like Ben-Hur. Call me old-fashioned, but some things were just better in the old days. I’ll still think of that birthday 63 years later when I celebrate my birthday this week.
