Ben-Hur: Four Disc Collector's Edition (1959) |
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Ben-Hur: Four Disc Collector's Edition (1959) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Action |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary-T. Gene Hatcher With Charlton Heston Alternative Version-1925 Silent Version, With Orchestral Score By Carl Davis Featurette-Ben-Hur: The Epic That Changed Cinema Featurette-Making Of-Ben-Hur: The Making Of An Epic Featurette-Ben-Hur: A Journey Through Pictures Featurette-Screen Tests (4) Featurette-Vintage Newsreels (6) Featurette-Highlights From 4/4/1960 Academy Awards Ceremony Teaser Trailer Theatrical Trailer-4 |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1959 | ||
| Running Time | 213:17 (Case: 142) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper |
RSDL (67:22) Multi Disc Set (4) |
Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Ads Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4,5 | Directed By | William Wyler |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Warner Home Video |
Starring |
Charlton Heston Jack Hawkins Haya Harareet Stephen Boyd Hugh Griffith Martha Scott Cathy O'Donnell Sam Jaffe Finlay Currie Frank Thring Terence Longdon George Relph André Morell |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music | Miklós Rózsa |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.76:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.76:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English Arabic Bulgarian Dutch French Italian Romanian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
The story of Ben-Hur has been instrumental to the long term success of the MGM studio twice. Firstly there was the 1925 silent version and then the 1959 version starring Charlton Heston. Both versions are presented here on this 4 disc special edition. This is the second time Ben-Hur has been released on DVD. I won’t be going over the epic's storyline in this review so if you’re not familiar with the story then I suggest you read Tony R’s excellent write up for the original release here.
The film is based on the 19th century book by General Lew Wallace. While not an immediate success when first published, within 2 years of release it had become a publishing phenomenon which lead to offers to make it into a stage play. Wallace was initially reluctant to allow this as he was concerned with how the Christ figure would be handled in the stage version. Theatre producers Klaw and Erlanger finally won Wallace’s approval with their suggestion to represent Christ simply as a shaft of intense white light.
The stage production was notable for its elaborate staging of key scenes such as the chariot race, which used real horses and chariots on treadmills for the chariot race scene. At its height there were five horses on stage for the race. The stage production was a huge success and made a then unheard of $10 million in its 20 year run.
The first film version of Ben-Hur was a 15 minute silent movie shot in 1907 that made history by setting a precedent for copyright law. The producers had not sought permission from the Wallace estate to use the story and his heirs, in a case that went all the way to the US Supreme Court, successfully sued the producers for $25,000.
By 1925 the film industry had matured somewhat since the 1907 version and a longer, more ambitious version was made. The troubled production began shooting in Rome but was moved back to the US after an out of control fire occurred while shooting the sea battle (actually shot out at sea). Back in the US the chariot race scene used 42 cameramen manning 42 cameras, creating a record that has never been broken. The scene also involved numerous assistant directors including a young William Wyler who would direct the 1959 version some 33 years later. This version was a huge success and gave important prestige to the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. At a record cost of $4 million it took 6 years to turn a profit.
By the 1950s the film studios were losing ground to television. Religious epics were one genre that still pulled audiences to the box office and it was for this reason that MGM decided to return once again to Ben-Hur. Director William Wyler who had a reputation as being slow and somewhat of a perfectionist was brought on board, receiving a record $1 million for his efforts.
Once again production headed over to Rome with some sets beginning construction a full year before the first frame of film was shot. Set construction alone went through 40,000 cubic feet of lumber, more than 1 million pounds of plaster, 250 miles of metal tubing and 40,000 tonnes of white sand carried in from Mediterranean beaches. Of interesting note is the fact that the base of the chariot track was in fact made of real stone to stop any run away chariots.
Whilst sole writing credit went to Karl Tunberg, numerous writers contributed to the screenplay including Gore Vidal who added a homoerotic element into the relationship between Messala (Steven Boyd) and Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) which can still be found if you look for it.
Coming in at a cost of $50 million the film set a record for the most expensive film up to that time but went on to make $80 million at the box office. The film was a huge success and has a well deserved reputation as being one of the greatest Hollywood epics made. While everybody has heard of Ben-Hur, I suspect not everybody has seen it. If you haven’t seen Ben-Hur then you really do owe it to yourself to seek out this landmark film.
This is the second release of Ben-Hur in Region 4 and while the original release was very good and still holds up well today, this new release is definitely an improvement over that release. The image is a little sharper and the aliasing (which sometimes appeared more like moire effects) which I feel is a significant issue with the original release is not an issue at all on this new release. I also noticed some wobble in the image of the original release which was most noticeable in the main titles. This new release features a rock solid image. The only quibble I would have about this new release, when compared to the original, is a bit of tendency to oversaturate the reds.
The film is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.77:1 (measured) which is extremely close to the original 70mm theatrical aspect ratio of 2.76:1. (It was shot using a process called MGM Camera 65 which is a 65mm negative with an anamorphic lens which gives the unusually wide frame). By comparison the previous release had an aspect ratio of 2.71:1 and when comparing the two it is obvious the previous release was cropped on all sides with quite noticeably more image present on the right and left of the new transfer.
The image exhibits excellent levels of sharpness and image detail which I’m sure is thanks in no small part to the 70mm source. The image sharpness falls just slightly short of the best reference transfers of modern films. This is pretty impressive given the age of the film. Shadow detail is also quite impressive for a film of this age and the image is completely free of low level noise.
Colours are well saturated and generally quite accurate and match quite well my memory of when I saw a restored 70mm print of this film a few years back. My only issue is in the tendency to oversaturate the reds at times. This is most noticeable in some of the Roman costumes that feature quite a bit of red. Skin tones were generally quite accurate although they occasionally had a slight tendency towards slightly brownish tones but this is consistent with my memory of the 70mm print.
The print used is very clean with only the very occasional specks of dirt and the occasional scratch which is pretty impressive for a film of this age. The film is free of any noticeable MPEG artefacts which is pretty rare. Even when projected onto a large screen the image holds up extremely well.
The English subtitles are white, easy to read and match very closely the onscreen dialogue.
The film is spread over two dual layer discs with RSDL encoding. The layer change on the first disc occurs at 67:22 which happens at a cut between two shots and may be noticed by some viewers. Disc 1 ends at the intermission so obviously this is very nice point to change discs. The layer change of the second disc occurs at 54:24 which occurs during a dissolve between scenes and may be noticed by some viewers.
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When originally shown theatrically in 70mm the soundtrack was presented using 6 track magnetic which used a configuration of Left, Left-Centre, Centre, Right Centre, Right and one surround channel. This has been remixed to the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack presented on this DVD. The sound quality is very good for a film of this age with only some occasional minor distortion which I suspect is present in the source material.
The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded at 384 Kb/s with the audio commentary being a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.
Dialogue was clear and easy to understand throughout. I did notice the occasional minor lip-sync issue which I feel is probably due to looping of some of the dialogue during ADR.
The original score by Miklos Rozsa underpins the onscreen action very well and is now regarded as one of the all-time classic film scores. It won a well deserved Academy Award.
The soundtrack is generally quite front oriented with the surrounds used mostly to expand the soundstage of the music soundtrack and for some occasional effects. The subwoofer is not used very much but adds weight to some of the effects in louder scenes.
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This four disc special edition contains an absolute plethora of high quality extras including the entire 1925 version of the film.
The menu for the main disc with the film starts up with the blaring anti-piracy advert and then goes into nicely animated 16x9 menus with music from the soundtrack playing in the background. The second disc, containing the second half of the movie, launches straight into 16x9 enhanced animated menus with music from the soundtrack in the background. The menu for the disc with the 1925 version is nicely animated with background music and is 16x9 enhanced. The menu for the disc with the bulk of the extras is 16x9 enhanced but is just a static image with no sound.
Charlton Heston provided an audio commentary for the original release which covered about a quarter of the film. In the gaps an onscreen prompt would instruct the viewer to skip to the next section. These segments are presented on this new commentary and combined with commentary from film historian T. Gene Hatcher. The two complement each other nicely. Hatcher provides a nice background to the film and clearly knows his stuff very well. Heston recalls his time doing the film and conveys a number of interesting anecdotes about the making of the film. Well worth a listen.
This is the complete 1925 version of Ben-Hur restored in tinted black and white with some segments using the then experimental two-strip Technicolor which must have been impressive to audiences of the time. I found myself drawn into this movie much more than I would have expected with its scale being very impressive. It incorporated special effects that were groundbreaking in their day and still hold up incredibly well.
The print is in surprisingly good condition for a film of its age. There are some minor scratches and dirt present but it is much cleaner than we have any right to expect for a film made in 1925. The image is a bit soft but was much better than I was expecting. I did however observe some minor cross-colouration. It should also be noted that the film is encoded as an interlaced video signal so results for viewers with progressive scanning displays may be somewhat dependant on the deinterlacing performance of their equipment. This film is presented on a dual layered disc with RSDL encoding with the layer change occurring at 68:04 which is placed just prior to a cut between live action and a title slide. The orchestral soundtrack has been provided by Carl Davis and wonderfully underpins the movie. It is in stereo and is therefore restricted to the front speakers, but I do think that is the way it should be. Overall this is a very welcome extra and its presentation is better than we really have any right to expect for a film of this age. It’s well worth watching.This documentary consists primarily of modern filmmakers discussing Ben-Hur and the influences it has had on their filmmaking. While there are some interesting observations made you do have to sit through an awful lot of banal gushing to get to it. If you want a good history of Ben-Hur from book to film then the ‘Making of an Epic’ documentary is far more rewarding. If you do watch it, make sure you keep watching during the credits as Charlton Heston tells an interesting story about going into the Academy Awards Ceremony with Jimmy Stewart.
This documentary was made in 1993 and is narrated by Christopher Plummer. While it is titled ‘Making of an Epic’ it is actually an excellent little documentary that covers everything, including the writing of the book, the stage production, original silent movies and finally the 1959 film version of Ben-Hur. If you watch only one featurette on this disc then this is the one to watch. It really is very good.
This short featurette combines short clips from the film with various production stills, behind the scenes photos, drawings and images of the music score, scripts and letters.
This a series of screen tests and make-up tests for the film. Those who have grown up seeing Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun movies may find the screen tests of Leslie Nielsen interesting. Details below:
A series of short news reels from the time of the film's release. Details below:
This footage, which is partially silent, shows footage from the 1960 Academy Awards. It is interesting to see the Academy Awards Ceremony were not always the slick and smooth show it is today.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The two versions seem to be almost identical. The only thing our release misses out on is an isolated music score. If you’re interested in these then you may prefer the Region 1. Otherwise, I’d be in favour of the superior resolution of PAL but I’ll call it a narrow win for Region 1 for the inclusion of the isolated music score.
Ben-Hur is an epic landmark film and one that deserves to be seen. The video and audio transfers are both top notch and the collection of extras is of a very high standard. In terms of extras the highlight for me was the inclusion of the complete 1925 silent version. If the improved transfer and extras doesn’t convince you to upgrade your version of Ben-Hur, them the inclusion of the 1925 version should.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-696AV-s, SACD & DVD-A, using HDMI output |
| Display | Panasonic PT-AE900E HD LCD Projector onto 90" 16x9 Screen. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 720p. |
| Audio Decoder | Logitech 5500 THX. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Logitech 5500 THX |
| Speakers | Logitech 5500 THX |