Delayed Reaction: Ben-Hur

The Pitch: It can't be that hard to make another Ten Commandments.

It's possible to call Ben-Hur a big deal, but not a classic. Or maybe, it's better to say that it's a classic because it's a big deal. It was the most expensive movie ever made at the time*. It was the second highest grossing movie ever at the time of its release, of course, still behind Gone with the Wind. However, adjusted for inflation, it's outclassed by contemporary films like The Sound of Music (1965), The Ten Commandments (1956), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and 101 Dalmatians (1961). It barely makes the greatest movies lists like AFI (#100 out of 100 in 2007) and Empire (#491 out of 500). Its 11 Oscar wins is tied for the record with similar spectacle films, Titanic and The Return of the King. And counting Oscars is a fool's errand anyway: It's more about external factors like the quality of the competition that year than how good the film is.

*At $15.17 million, it surpassed the 3-year old record set by The Ten Commandments ($13.272), and held the record for only 3 years, when it was passed by Mutiny on the Bounty ($19), and obliterated by Cleopatra a year after that ($31.115).

What I'm getting at is that there's a reason why people are more surprised when you haven't seen Casablanca than Ben-Hur. Ben-Hur is a fine movie. The chariot race is rightfully among the most impressive action sequences ever filmed. The more I learn about the difficulty of that shoot, the more impressive it gets. While I doubt I'll ever get around to watching the entire movie again, I'll surely watch that race again.

Ben-Hur is a grand production and an ok movie. It's too long, which is a product of its time. Watching it reminded me of The Count of Monte Cristo. I read a couple-hundred page abridged version of the book in high school and loved it so much that I read the 1400 page full version in college. There was hardly a plot point in the full text that was missed in the abridged version. The taught me that efficiency in writing can be as important as the quality. Similarly, Ben-Hur could be 2-2.5 hours without losing much of anything. Really, it's hard for me to focus on much else about the film. That's my two notes: Chariot race - good. Length - bad.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend