r/movies • u/SanderSo47 I'll see you in another life when we are both cats. • 15h ago
Media Ben-Hur (1959): The Chariot Race. The scene used over 70 horses and thousands of extras. It took 5 weeks to film at a cost of $1 million and required more than 200 miles of racing to complete.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LVp4tvl5O460
u/Waldron1943 14h ago
Written by Lew Wallace, a Union Civil-War general and later, Governor of New Mexico. It was while he was Governor that he wrote "Ben-Hur : A tale of the Christ".
He promised Billy the Kid a pardon if he testified in a court case . Billy did, Wallace went back on his word, Billy escaped, and never trusted an authority figure again.
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u/theguineapigssong 8h ago
Ben-Hur was the best selling American novel of the 1800s.
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u/alanpardewchristmas 1h ago
Pretty sure it was the best selling American novel of all time until Gone with the Wind
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u/DanielsJacket 10h ago
Everyone should listen to What Went Wrong podcast, they have a really good deep dive on this film. Amazing!
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u/Statement-Tiny 8h ago
People have no idea how impressive older movies are. It’s amazing how they had to invent alternate realities without the “ease” of incorporating tech. Actors/actresses had no one to mimic and no frame of reference for what techniques would be successful.
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u/MovieMike007 Not to be confused with Magic Mike 14h ago
I love how they incorporated Joe Canutt, the stuntman doubling for Heston, being ejected from the chariot when it went over a crashed chariot, into him climbing back in.
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u/washu_z 13h ago
If they did it now it would cost $100 million, take a year, look like shit, be 90% CGI, but still manage to kill at least 14 horses.
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u/SwashAndBuckle 12h ago
They did remake this scene in 2016, so we don’t have to speculate too hard.
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u/corpulentFornicator 12h ago
It would also have an obnoxiously loud score underneath.
Idk how, but the lack of music in this race makes it feel more real, more visceral
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u/ModsAreLosers73 7h ago
stuff like this is why I want nothing to do with AI in films, like we were capable of this in 1959…
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u/Chen_Geller 59m ago edited 53m ago
For the record, Ben Hur has a lot of bluescreen elsewhere. It's not CGI yet - they're models and optical composites but there's still a lot of it.
If you want films from this era that are almost completely in-camera, David Lean is your man.
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u/zomboscott 5h ago
A lot of horses died or had to be out down because of this movie.Like over a hundred. They really didn't give a shit what happened to them. I'm ok with a bit of CGI.
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u/SiliconTrolley 4h ago
No horses died making this film. Maybe you are thinking about the 1925 silent movie?
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u/TylerCisMe 6h ago
Didn't one of the stuntman get killed for real and is left in the film? Trampled by the horse behind him as he dragged on the ground.
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u/Pontin_Finnberry 5h ago edited 5h ago
Might be 1925 version as well as another said, i don't know, but it was also the 1959 version, however he didn't actually die, that old theory was debunked if i remember right, you see it in this 1959 scene where the stuntman gets ran over, but they were ok.
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u/Ivotedforher 10h ago
How did none of the horses get caught on film pooping? That's the real movie magic.
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u/warbastard 40m ago
I’ve always liked how this scene was cut into the back and forth between Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday.
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u/Tobias---Funke 53m ago
IIRC after all that the directors Porsche accidentally gets shown in a shot.
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u/kerill333 14h ago
A lot of horses died. I can't watch it now I know that.
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u/IgloosRuleOK 14h ago
No, that was the 1925 version.
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u/kerill333 14h ago
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u/IgloosRuleOK 14h ago
Your Yahoo link is about the 1925 film, and literally says "That rumors of stuntman and horse deaths in the Heston film persist to this day is a testament to just how notorious that original 1925 production became."
And your other sources are a bunch of shitty Q&A websites with no references.
Provide an actual source and I'm happy to believe it.
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u/-DementedAvenger- 14h ago
Those sources don’t seem very reliable.
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Your first link specifically mentions that no horses were harmed during production of 1959.
"It is estimated that at least 30 horses died during the filming of Ben-Hur. This is a tragedy, but it is important to remember that the movie is a work of fiction and that no animals were actually harmed during the filming."
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Your second link is entirely about, and obviously mentions multiple times, that they’re talking about 1925.
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And your third link has a few very strangely phrased answers to the list of questions, or answers that literally don’t answer the question (the Jesus one), so I think it’s likely to be A.I. and getting mixed up.
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u/CliffBoothVSBruceLee 13h ago
"It is estimated that at least 30 horses died during the filming of Ben-Hur. This is a tragedy, but it is important to remember that the movie is a work of fiction and that no animals were actually harmed during the filming."
That also makes absolutely no sense
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u/kerill333 13h ago
Are you reading the same text I am? About the 1959 versionc first link, "Based on the information that is available, it is estimated that at least 30 horses died during the filming of Ben-Hur."
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u/figpucker_9000 9h ago
….”that no animals were actually harmed during the filming.”
Not a great source that immediately contradicts itself.
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u/kerill333 14h ago
What about this?
https://great-american-adventures.com/did-horses-get-hurt-in-old-westerns/
You only have to watch it to see the injuries. No CGI obviously.
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u/-DementedAvenger- 13h ago
Whatever "great American adventures" is…I don’t know. But they aren’t citing sources.
Same trustworthiness of me, a random guy on the internet, saying they didn’t hurt any horses.
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u/kerill333 13h ago
I once read a very long and detailed article about it but can't find it now, saying that the stunt guy in charge of the horses was absolutely ruthless and uncaring. I am trying to find it. Definitely was about the Charlton Heston version.
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u/JaesopPop 10h ago
You literally posted an article that argued against what you're saying here.
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u/kerill333 1h ago
Are you reading a different version to me?
What movie killed the most animals?
“Ben-Hur” (1959) But according to film historians, as many as 100 horses were killed during the production of the iconic
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u/Kaldricus 13h ago
"Everything I've provided that has credible sources actually discredits what I'm saying, but I did my own research and one article (that I can't find) backs me up. Trust me bro, I'm right."
Learn to take an L gracefully
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u/kerill333 1h ago
Honestly, I can't believe you all watch those scenes, knowing that every take was run multiple times, see horses racing absolutely flat out and crashing multiple times, and come away with 'la la la la everything was fine and no horses were killed'. Do you know how fragile horses are? How many are shot after an average day of racing nowadays when our veterinary advances have made such a difference since 1959? Come on.
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u/Chen_Geller 15h ago
The horse chase scene that notoriously resulted in multiple horse deaths was not in this film: it was in the 1925 film.