ben hur

It might have been hard to be a Charlton Heston fan at the tail end of his career: polyester and politics will sully almost anyone’s reputation. But during the late ‘50s, he was a close as a movie star could get to God…literally. After playing Moses in The Ten Commandments, Heston followed up his Biblical performance with another religious epic, Ben Hur, the most expensive movie ever produced at the time. Director William Wyler’s film wound up winning eleven Academy Awards (a record that still holds today, tied with Titanic and The Return of the King) and cementing Heston’s reputation as the go-to guy for studio tent-pole pictures. But Ben Hur is far from a creaky historical record of Hollywood’s golden years; it’s an action-packed, monumental cinematic achievement that served as the model for filmmakers half a century later. The Chariot Sequence alone is the stuff of legend. Utilizing multiple cameras and taking over five weeks to film, the stunts still pack a punch, all the more so because it’s obvious Heston puts himself in real danger here. As Judah Ben-Hur, a Judean prince banished to slavery who returns to avenge his family, Heston boils with an authentic sort of righteous rage that few actors of his era were capable of. His performance gets a big boost from Miklos Rozsa’s thunderous musical score, a sweeping work of genius that still stands as one of the best ever written. Warner has put together a special edition package that includes a restored blu-ray of the nearly four hour film (spread across 2-discs), a feature length documentary, storyboards, screen tests, the 1925 silent version of the film plus a coffee-table book and recreation of Heston’s actual diary on the set. As collector’s editions go, it doesn’t get more collectible than this!