He also worked as an assistant director on several large-scale international productions shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, notably Quo Vadis ( 1951 ) and Ben-Hur ( 1959 ), financially backed by the American studios.

He also had an uncredited role as a doctor in Ben-Hur and appeared alongside Norman Wisdom in Follow a Star.

MGM Records also issued albums of film scores, including Ben-Hur, King of Kings, Doctor Zhivago, and How the West Was Won.

He was also one of the writers of the classic 1959 film, Ben-Hur, directed by William Wyler.

He also appeared in the Academy Award-winning films The Bridge on the River Kwai ( 1957 ) and Ben-Hur ( 1959 ), in several of Hammer's well-known horror films throughout the 1960s and in the acclaimed ITV historical drama The Caesars ( 1968 ).

Gozzo also performed on motion picture soundtracks including The Glenn Miller Story, The Benny Goodman Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Call Me Madam, Ben-Hur and Cleopatra.

He also had an uncredited appearance as the galley-master in Ben-Hur ( 1959 ) and as factory worker Bert Harker in the BBC's 1960s soap opera The Newcomers.

The cameraman was three-time Academy Award winner color specialist W. Howard Greene, billed as William H. Greene, who also photographed the 2-color Technicolor scenes in Ben-Hur ( 1925 ), in addition to many other early Technicolor films.

Ben-Hur had been a great success as a novel, and also as a stage play.

Ben-Hur declines, even after he learns that champion charioteer Messala will also compete.

This made the Ben-Hur film musical score the first to be released not only in its entirety but also as a separate album.

Ben-Hur also won three Golden Globe Awards — Best Motion Picture, Drama, Best Motion Picture Director, Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd — and received a Special Achievement Award ( which went to Andrew Marton for directing the chariot race sequence ).

The most notable example of this trend was the " Biblical trilogy " of William Vaughn Moody, which also illustrate the rise of religious-themed drama during the same years, as seen in the 1899 production of Ben-Hur and two 1901 adaptations of Quo Vadis.

Films shown in roadshow format before 1953 included silent epics such as The Birth of a Nation ( 1915 ), Intolerance ( 1916 ), The Covered Wagon ( 1923 ), The Hunchback of Notre Dame ( 1923 ), The Ten Commandments ( 1923 ), Ben-Hur ( 1925 ), The Big Parade ( 1925 ), and other films such as The Phantom of the Opera ( 1925 ), the first Oscar winner Wings ( 1927 ), the very first feature length part-talkie The Jazz Singer ( 1927 ), the silent film Chicago ( 1927 ) ( based on the play that inspired the Kander and Ebb Broadway musical and Oscar-winning film ), Show Boat ( 1929 ) ( a part-talkie based not on the 1927 stage musical but on Edna Ferber's original novel from which the musical was adapted ), The Desert Song ( 1929 ), Rio Rita ( also 1929 ), Cecil B. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross ( 1932 ), the all-star Oscar winning Grand Hotel ( 1932 ), the Oscar-winning biopic The Great Ziegfeld ( 1936 ), the classic films Lost Horizon ( 1937 ), Gone with the Wind ( 1939 ), Fantasia ( 1940 ), For Whom the Bell Tolls ( 1943 ) and The Song of Bernadette ( 1943 ), the wartime tear-jerker Since You Went Away ( 1944 ), Samuel Goldwyn's Oscar-winning postwar epic The Best Years of Our Lives ( 1946 ), the flamboyant Western Duel in the Sun ( also 1946 ), and the biopic Joan of Arc starring Ingrid Bergman ( 1948 ), as well as some other DeMille epics, such as Samson and Delilah ( 1949 ).

Designed by the architectural firm of Clarence Blackall and paid for by Frederick Lothrop Ames ( see also Ames Building, Boston ) the theatre first opened its doors for a performance of Ben-Hur on December 20, 1900.

Jerry ( Veronica Cartwright ), Guy's repressed lesbian ball-bustingly ambitious agent, connives to cover up the impending outing and ensure Guy the role in Ben-Hur by marrying her client off with great fanfare to the studio head's secretary, Sally ( Carrie Preston ), who just happens to also be a slavishly devoted Guy Stone fan.

However, films shot at aspect ratios of 2. 20: 1, 2. 35: 1, 2. 39: 1, 2. 55: 1, and especially 2. 76: 1 ( Ben-Hur for example ) might still be problematic when displayed on televisions of any type ( though connoisseurs of films might dispute this ).

Another example, as Martin Scorsese has noted on television, is in the 1959 Ben-Hur.

Wallace went on to publish several novels and biographies, plus his memoir ; but Ben-Hur was his most important book.

The book itself went on to inspire the plot for a wide array of novels, from Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur ( 1880 ), a Science Fiction retelling in Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, to Stephen Fry's contemporary The Stars ' Tennis Balls,

In order to make A Farewell to Arms, he had reportedly turned down Marlon Brando's role in Sayonara, William Holden's role in The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Charlton Heston's role in Ben-Hur.

With an Oscar nomination on her resume ' Scott found steady movie work for the next four decades, appearing in some major epics like The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, The Desperate Hours, and Airport 1975.

The play, based on Lew Wallace's book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, opened on Broadway in November, 1899 and proved to be a great success.

Before Jaws set box office records in the summer of 1975, successful films such as Quo Vadis, The Ten Commandments, Gone With the Wind, and Ben-Hur were called blockbusters based purely on the amount of money earned at the box office.

A successful Shakespearean actor on Broadway who had worked with Margaret Mather and other stars, he appeared in the original 1899 stage production of Ben-Hur.

Griffith had been an actor on stage and screen since the 1930s, but gained his highest profile roles after Quatermass II ; he went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as Sheikh Ilderim in Ben-Hur ( 1959 ).

He appeared in two films which won the Academy Award for Best Picture ; The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957, as Colonel Green, and Ben-Hur in 1959 as Sextus .< ref >

On film, the best-known of the many productions he appeared in were The 39 Steps ( 1959, as Kennedy ), Ben-Hur ( 1959, uncredited but playing Marius ), Mutiny on the Bounty ( 1962, as John Williams ), Arabesque ( 1966 ) and Battle of Britain ( 1969, as Flight Sergeant Arthur ).

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace published on November 12, 1880 by Harper & Brothers.

With the Crucifixion, Ben-Hur recognizes that the Christ stands for a different goal than revenge, and he becomes Christian, turning to supporting the new religion with money which he has inherited, inspired by love and the talk of keys to a greater kingdom than any on earth.

He went on to publish several more novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur was most important.

Esther, Simonides and Malluch talk together, and conclude that Ben-Hur is who he claims to be, and that he is on their side in the fight against Rome.

In 1908, perhaps seeking to capitalize on the publicity of the case and the film, Harper & Brothers published a lavishly designed and illustrated book, The Chariot Race from Ben-Hur, which excerpted only the race from Lew Wallace's novel.

Esther hears Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount, and tells Ben-Hur about the message of peace and forgiveness she heard.

Ben-Hur tells Esther that he heard Jesus talk of forgiveness while on the cross, and says " I felt His voice take the sword out of my hand.

In a gamble to save the studio, and inspired by the success of Paramount Pictures ' 1956 Biblical epic The Ten Commandments, studio head Joseph Vogel announced in 1957 that MGM would again move forward on a remake of Ben-Hur.

During President Garfield's limited tenure, he appointed several ambassadors, notably James R. Lowell as U. S. minister to England ; and the famous author of Ben-Hur and former Union Civil War general, Lew Wallace, as U. S. minister to Turkey.

Photographs show several scenes using the gesture, including one of Ben-Hur greeting a seated sheik and another of a small crowd so greeting Ben-Hur in his chariot.

Ben-Hur has been released on home video on several occasions.

In the 1950s, Cinecittà was the filming location for several large American film productions like Ben-Hur, and then became the studio most closely associated with Federico Fellini.

Loew's new conglomeration of companies had mired themselves in several costly troubled productions ( among them, Ben-Hur ( 1925 ), and tangled contractual dealings with Erich von Stroheim, whose cost overruns doomed any production he was associated with ) that threatened to bring the entire venture to its knees.