A "Real" Character

Rating: 10/10 (16 April 2006)

General Lew Wallace, a somewhat controversial commander of the Union forces in the Civil War happened to be on a train with Robert Ingersoll, noted atheist in the 19th century. Wallace was a moderately religious man and attempted to debate Ingersoll. The story has it that Ingersoll whipped him to a frazzle and Wallace knew it. But he resolved to study the Bible and learn about his faith so that he would be better prepared.
He never got to debate Ingersoll again, but Wallace got so immersed in religion that he decided to put that knowledge to use. While he was Territorial Governor of New Mexico and while he wasn't dealing with the Lincoln County War and the hunting down of Billy the Kid, he spent his spare time creating what became the widest selling work of fiction in his century, Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ.
He did his research well. Judah Ben-Hur and his mother and sister are descended from a very ancient family of Hebrew nobility. The founder of this house was Hur who in the Bible was the husband of Miriam who was Moses's sister. Hur pops up as a peripheral character during the whole story of the Exodus. He invested the characters that Charlton Heston, Martha Scott, and Cathy O'Donnell play with a heroic lineage which makes their fall all the more tragic.
So on the consciousness of the public were the Hur family that one often thinks of them as real people. Case in point, many years ago a teacher of mine wanted to demonstrate how many true characters Charlton Heston played on the screen. I count 15 in his list of credits on IMDb, some he's played in more than one film or television show. Inevitably more than just one person named Ben-Hur as a real character. A tribute to the timelessness of the character and to Charlton Heston's abilities as actor.
The story is that Heston and his family greet an old friend newly arrived back in Judea province, Messala who is now a tribune. Messala played by Stephen Boyd, is one ambitious fellow and he wants Heston to rat out potential leaders of rebellion in this most unruly of Roman provinces. Heston refuses.
The next day Boyd frames an incident where a piece of old tile accidentally falls from the Hur family home while the new Judean governor is passing by into an assassination attempt. Scott and O'Donnell are thrown in prison and Heston is sentenced to the galleys. The story is then Ben-Hur's adventures in trying to get back to Judea and set things right.
Ben-Hur meets a whole host of people who aid him in his endeavor. Jack Hawkins as a commander of the galley fleet he's serving on, Finlay Currie as Balthazar one of the Three Wise Men now seeking the child whose birth he witnessed in the year Anno Domini, Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ilderim whose horses Ben-Hur races.
It's not often mentioned, but among the Oscars collected for this most honored film, besides the ones that the film itself, Wyler, and Heston won, was Hugh Griffith's for Best Supporting Actor. His Arab sheik is a blustering, but very wise and compassionate fellow. The events of this film are taking place some six centuries before the Prophet Mohammed arrived on the scene. The Arab people at that time were involved in a hedonistic animist kind of religion, but it's left up in the air that they might turn Christian. Certainly some of them did and some are Christian to this day as the country of Lebanon attests.
Griffith had the wildest pair of eyes in film history next to Jack Elam's and he used them to great effect. Watch his expressions during the film, they're what got him the Oscar.
Stephen Boyd also got rave notices for the evil Messala. When he's not stepping on people to move up in Roman politics, Messala likes to race chariots. During his odyssey Ben-Hur becomes a charioteer and the climax of the film is the thrilling chariot race that turns into a race for survival. You'll see in the film, Messala doesn't exactly play by Marquis of Queensbury rules for charioteers. Boyd did some leads after Ben-Hur, but never really took as a hero. But he was one grand villain.
While Ben-Hur is a prisoner being led to the galleys the Roman prison convoy stops in a town called Nazareth and a carpenter faces down a Roman guard to give the thirsting Ben-Hur a drink of water. The two men go their separate ways, Ben-Hur's is described in the book by Lew Wallace, the carpenter's way in the first four books of the New Testament. Later on after Ben-Hur discovers his mother and sister and what's become of them, they hear about Jesus of Nazareth, a rabbi with a message of hope and reputation for miracles.
Of course when they seek Jesus it's when He's just been tried and condemned and on the way to the cross. It's now Ben-Hur's turn to offer the carpenter a drink of water on the way, to show his trust and faith. And as the sky darkens and Jesus breathes his last, the film depicts what the New Testament describes as the blackest day in Earth's history. But even at that point Heston's new found faith is rewarded, a miracle at the point of death. What was the miracle, for that you buy the DVD or wait until Ben-Hur is on television.
Ben-Hur should really be seen in a theater, even a letter box version doesn't do justice to the chariot race or the sea battle with pirates.
Ben-Hur is the story of two paths, one of vengeance and one of faith. Our protagonist tries his way and in the end realizes the path of faith is the more rewarding.