The Race

If anyone ever asks me about my favourite movie I'll say Ben Hur - for the chariot race. There's never been anything to match it.

Ben Hur was made in 1959 but the planning was underway years before that. At the time it was the biggest cinematic undertaking ever. Ben Hur is the story of two men, Judah Ben Hur, a Jewish prince and Messala, a Roman soldier, friends as boys who become enemies as men, realising that they had nothing in common any more. The story is set in the troubled period when Christ was living in Judea; it's a story of passion, of love, of desire, of cruelty and hatred as well as great courage. The film starred Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd in the lead roles supported by more than 60 others, as well as 15 thousand extras. It was filmed in Italy.

But back to the chariot race. This was the climax to an amazing story in which the two heroes are pitted against each other in a do or die final struggle to decide which of them would be declared the victor. The movie modelled the race on the ancient circus in Jerusalem. This required the construction of the largest set ever built for a movie. It kept over a thousand men occupied for a year carving an oval from a rock face which was some 18 acres in area. It required a million feet of timber, 250 miles of steel tubing and 40,000 tons of white sand from Mediterranean beaches.

The chariot race took three months to film. It required nine chariots each pulled by four horses. So for many months 78 beautiful animals were in training and this required a full-time old-fashioned blacksmith. The action was not only dramatic but highly dangerous and throughout this entire period a team of two doctors and two nurses manned an infirmary near the track. None of the drivers sustained serious injury but the staff was kept busy treating extras in the stands who were suffering from heat exhaustion.

And the race itself? Roman chariot races continued on for a great many circuits. The race was, of course, fast and furious with no quarter given and there were no rules. Anything could and did happen. Long knives on the axles were good for scything out another's spokes and early in the race Messala lashes his whip across Ben Hur's face. There were crashes and broken chariots littered the course. At one point in the race Ben Hur finds he is racing towards two upended chariots and seems to have no way to avoid them. Chariton Heston was without doubt an outstanding charioteer and with great skill his chariot jumps the wreckage and he almost appears to fly many feet above the ground. In the end, of course, it is Ben Hur who wins after Messala is involved in a collision in which he is thrown from his chariot but dragged behind it around the stadium. They carry him to the infirmary where he lays dying as Ben Hur comes to see how he is. Messala utters the last of his hate at his now victorious rival.

The race sequence lasts a continuous eight minutes in the cinema and has probably never been equalled by any other movie. Ben Hur won eleven Academy Awards including Best Picture in both America and Britain. For me, it was not a race but The Race.

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