Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

Originally posted to Facebook on 1/8/2018

Ben-Hur was our fourth film from 1925. It was directed by Fred Niblo, and is the second film we've seen starring Ramon Novarro. We'd previously seen a short version from 1907, and Ben and I saw the 2016 version when it was in the theaters, so we were somewhat familiar with the plot.

The story revolves around Judah Ben-Hur (Novarro), a Jewish resident of Jerusalem, who comes into conflict with his childhood friend, the Roman Messala (played by Francis X. Bushman) and ends up separated from his family as a slave on a Roman galley, trying to recover what he's lost and reunite with his family. In the 2016 version a significant amount of time was spent detailing the deteriorating relationship between Ben-Hur and Messala -- and indeed this was probably the most interesting part of that movie. In the 1925 movie that is all telescoped -- Messala is, from the start, a much more straightforward antagonist. The key sequences of this film (and the 2016 version as well) are the battle at sea, and the chariot race. Both were groundbreaking at the time, and still hold up as well as you would expect in a big-budget film of this kind -- and, consistent with the reputation for the general disregard for safety in silent films, both were rumored to have resulted in the deaths of stuntmen or extras.

Another element that would have captured the attention of contemporary audiences was the Technicolor sequences -- something I became aware of only in preparation for this viewing. I didn't tell the kids ahead of time, and they were suitably impressed ("How did they do that?" asked Alli) -- though it's questionable whether these sequences really add anything beyond spectacle to the movie. However that is in keeping with the spirit of the film, which too was largely spectacle, and it was certainly something we hadn't seen before during this project. We'd previously seen hand-colored movies from the early days of cinema, but this was the first film for us with color captured during filming -- in this case using two-strip Technicolor, which didn't register the full spectrum, but for a specific palette was bright and dramatic.

These color sequences were mainly used for the religious segments of the film (though a few other random sequences were in color as well), presumably to imbue those segments with an added significance, which was in tune with the film's general approach towards Christianity. The subtitle of the film (and the book) is A Tale of the Christ, and the filmmakers clearly intend the film to revolve around Ben-Hur's spiritual awakening, but from a purely storytelling perspective, many of the religious sequences seem extraneous, especially the recapitulation of biblical stories which don't involve Ben-Hur directly. Additionally, the decision was made to not show Jesus Christ directly, often only showing his hand reaching in from off-screen. I imagine this was done in order to be respectful, but it ends up reading as a bit odd, as if Jesus Christ is being played by Thing from the Addams family. It is also a different approach than had been used in previous movies, including, for example, 1916's Intolerance which we'd watched a year earlier, and which had an on-screen actor playing Jesus, including in the biblical 'cast the first stone' scene which is in both films.

But this film does succeed as a strong example of a big-budget action-focused blockbuster, perhaps the truest embodiment of that category that we have yet seen. Novarro carries the film quite capably, as he did in 1923's Scaramouche. I preferred that earlier film, because it filled out its characters better, and was a little more thoughtful, but Ben-Hur is on a larger scale and is much more of an epic, recalling some of the similar large-scale films we'd seen from a decade earlier (e.g. Cabiria, Intolerance, Last Days of Pompeii, etc.)

Our next film is Lazybones, our fifth film from 1925, and the first time we'll see Frank Borzage as director. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT

Scaramouche (1923)

Originally posted to Facebook on 7/7/2017

Scaramouche was our first film from 1923, and it was superficially similar to Robin Hood in that it was a big budget Hollywood costume drama. However, whereas Robin Hood was primarily an adventure film and a Fairbanks vehicle, Scaramouche seems a little more interested in its story and setting. It takes place just prior to and during the French Revolution, and has brief appearances by actors portraying Danton and Napoleon. The title character, played by Ramon Novarro, is just back from college, and, within the first several minutes of the film, is involved in a conflict with a nobleman (played by Lewis Stone), who kills one of Novarro’s friends in a duel, and also emerges as his main romantic rival to the female lead, played by Alice Terry. Lewis Stone went on to star as Judge Hardy in more than a dozen Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney in the sound era, while Ramon Novarro, although best known for his leading roles during the twenties, continued acting up until his murder in the late sixties, including on such television shows as Dr. Kildare and Bonanza. (He was murdered, by the way, by two men who robbed him by posing as male prostitutes. I did not share this fun fact with the kids.)

The movie itself is certainly melodramatic, and perhaps derivative of A Tale of Two Cities and other similarly themed stories, but it does proceed with a certain seriousness of intent, and with some interest in the ambiguities of the French Revolution. One interesting device that it employs, and which I’ve seen in other films of this period as well, is to occasionally show a written letter, initially appearing to the viewer in French, but then fading into an English equivalent. This is a decent solution to maintaining the verisimilitude of the setting while still allowing the audience to understand the contents of the writing -- and it appears that it was something of a convention at the time. I think in the end it is too disruptive to the audience’s suspension of disbelief, and probably faded from use for that reason, but it’s interesting to see it as a transitory device.

Next week we see our second film from 1923: Safety Last. This is our first feature starring Harold Lloyd -- excepting 1928’s Speedy, which was not technically part of this project. It is also the source of the iconic image of Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock face, and, after Caligari, is the second feature in this project that I’d previously seen in its entirety. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT