Nothing in this world is perfect, but this movie comes close.

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2015)

I first saw Ben Hur at the cinema in Manchester, not long after its initial release. At the age of 15, this was my first introduction to such a big film on what seemed then to be a massive wide screen. I was transfixed.
Over the years since then, I've seen it several times, mostly on TV. It's a movie on a grand scale and, sadly, even my 46" screen can't do it full justice. It does try though, and the recent acquisition of Ben Hur on a special Blue Ray edition has greatly enhanced the experience.
There is a good deal of trivial criticism about the movie, concerning the production, editing etc. Some of this may be true, but little of it detracts from the sheer enjoyment the movie has to offer, at least for me.
I shan't even try to detail the many high spots in the film, but there are a couple that I must mention.
1. The growth of the relationship between Ben Hur and Quintus Arrius highlighted just how good an actor Jack Hawkins was - a great loss to movies following his untimely death in 1973.
2. When Judah meets Sheik Ildarim, he's introduced to the Sheik's "children", four beautiful white Arabian horses. The scene with the horses inside the tent was quite moving and the horses acted well in this and subsequent scenes. Some may find this trivial, in the scheme of this epic movie, but it gave me a little extra joy.
There are some amazing movies produced today, by many great directors and artists. Yet, somehow, as great as many of them are, they clearly belong to a new technical age. Epics like Ben Hur, made >55 years ago represent remarkable achievements in film, belonging as they do to an earlier grand movie era.