Operation Ben Hur

The chariot race I should have picked was the one my Aunt Dorothy saw in 1903 at Portland’s Jefferson Theater. It took carpenters six weeks to remodel the stage for the treadmills that alone cost $15,000. Ben-Hur’s advance publicity hit the Maine seaport like a nor’easter. Such things had never been seen in Portland before—the shipwreck, the hundreds of dancing Roman maidens, the 25,000 candlepower shaft of light in the last scene to symbolize the appearance of Christ.

The climax was of course the race. When the two chariots, each with four horses, thundered down the treadmills as the panoramic background unrolled behind them, first Ben, then Messala, then finally Ben inching ahead, Aunt Dorothy said those chill state-of-Mainers stood up and cheered. The treadmills made so much noise you couldn’t hear the drivers shouting—but you could smell the horses! Then there was that race in the Colonial Theater in Boston, unique in theatrical history, when a treadmill stuck and Messala (William S. Hart) won. I myself saw the 1926 silent film version with Ramon No-.varro as a bug-eyed Ben-Hur and Francis X. Bushman as the villainous Messala. Beyond the chariot race I don’t remember much. My most defined impression is still that climactic moment when Francis X. Bushman took his whip as the chariots surged round the curve and let Ramon have it right in the kisser.

FR

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Francis Russell

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The chariot race I should have picked was the one my Aunt Dorothy saw in 1903 at Portland’s Jefferson Theater. It took carpenters six weeks to remodel the stage for the treadmills that alone cost $15,000. Ben-Hur’s advance publicity hit the Maine seaport like a nor’easter. Such things had never been seen in Portland before—the shipwreck, the hundreds of dancing Roman maidens, the 25,000 candlepower shaft of light in the last scene to symbolize the appearance of Christ.

The climax was of course the race. When the two chariots, each with four horses, thundered down the treadmills as the panoramic background unrolled behind them, first Ben, then Messala, then finally Ben inching ahead, Aunt Dorothy said those chill state-of-Mainers stood up and cheered. The treadmills made so much noise you couldn’t hear the drivers shouting—but you could smell the horses! Then there was that race in the Colonial Theater in Boston, unique in theatrical history, when a treadmill stuck and Messala (William S. Hart) won. I myself saw the 1926 silent film version with Ramon No-.varro as a bug-eyed Ben-Hur and Francis X. Bushman as the villainous Messala. Beyond the chariot race I don’t remember much. My most defined impression is still that climactic moment when Francis X. Bushman took his whip as the chariots surged round the curve and let Ramon have it right in the kisser.