Another old epic potboiler - Ben Hur, the 1959 version of course. Again, I recall reading the book and finding it to be tedious in that 19th century sort of way, where books were expensive and you wanted a lot of words for your money. There's no way, however to narrate a chariot race in text, so what must have been one of the biggest non-digital productions ever undertaken (horses trained by Yakima Canutt), including the absolutely insane chariot race, was put into this epic film. I could read about a chariot race all day, but seeing it on film is still amazing, as was the rest of ancient Rome and Jerusalem.
This is another case that brings up that old Chinese proverb, One seeing is worth a thousand tellings.
This is another case that brings up that old Chinese proverb, One seeing is worth a thousand tellings.
Everyone, including me, was knocked out by the '59 movie. Epic films were starting to get popular. But when I watched it several months ago it so bored me that I couldn't watch ANY movie for several weeks... The chariot race of course was superb.
But I'd have to say that the 1925 silent is a better picture, and the runtime wasn't as painfully long.