A Few Words About A few words about...™ Ben-Hur -- in Blu-ray (2 Viewers)

[Alan Tully]

The gorgeous BEN-HUR BD really illustrates how great these classic widescreen epics can look, especially compared to the old standard DVDs. I really wish that we could see more of them. I'm hoping that someday they will get around to the likes of BARABBAS, SOLOMON AND SHEBA, THE STORY OF RUTH, THE VIKINGS, THE SILVER CHALICE and HELEN OF TROY. And, an HD upgrade of the Niblo version would be nice, since the TEN COMMANDMENTS box included the silent version in BD which was much appreciated.

Yes please, plus, Land Of The Pharaohs & The Long Ships. Barabbas is the film noir of ancient world epics, but it does contain one of the most spectacular arena scenes. The DVD makes it look like it was shot on 16mm (the same with Lord Jim). These big colourful epics were made for Blu-ray.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

I've never seen Ben-Hur in a theater proper. The first time I ever watched it all the way through was when it first appeared on letterbox laserdisc (late 1980's). It has been an almost yearly staple since.

This year I had the great pleasure of watching the blu-ray on the new 2.76x1 screen I built for my HT. All I can say is that it's AWESOME!

I'll probably never get to see it on a larger screen. But if i ever have the opportunity, I would go for it.

Back in the 90's AMC theaters had a 70mm series where they showed West Side Story, 2001, Doctor Zhivago, and Ben Hur on their biggest screen. The chariot race is amazing on the big screen, the thing you don't pick up on the TV version is the shaking camera during the race. On the big screen, it is obvious. All of the movies AMC showed back then are worth seeing on the big screen!

 

[FoxyMulder]

Thanks guys, it was really a late late show I was having, I just got the box and couldn't wait. Do they need to be compressing SD files for blu-ray? Couldn't they at least put an uncompressed SD file onto that huge disc? I did read how this restoration had only been output to PAL tape which is a bummer.

If the master is great quality then just doing a new encode using the AVC codec would yield a very pleasing image when upscaled, if all they do is transfer the old MPEG 2 encode over then it's going to look poorer, i have Ben Hur but haven't yet watched it or the silent version, currently renovating the home cinema room, when it's done, early next year, then i will watch both.

 

[benbess]

Rewatching my blu-ray of Ben-Hur now. I love the Miklos Rozsa music in this movie.

 

[benbess]

Ramming speed! Jack Hawkins is as great in this movie as he in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Both times he plays flawed characters in a compelling way....What are his other great roles?

 

[benbess]

As RAH mentions in his review of several years ago, there are a few tiny and seemingly fixable flaws in this blu-ray release. I've noticed them since I first got this blu-ray, but here's one.....at 1:16:50 you'll see a cut where there seem to be maybe a few missing frames. In I think two other places in this movie you see the same thing in the blu-ray. For any movie, this would be distracting, but in a movie of this quality, shot on 70mm, it seems strange.

Is there any chance for this movie to be brought to 4k/UHD? I hope so. And if so I will buy it again, but probably only if they fix these issues, which are distracting.

In short, this movie does not on blu-ray have quite the perfection found with the blu-rays of Spartacus or The Ten Commandments.

And, I don't think it'll ever happen, but if The Wizard of Oz can be successfully brought to 3D, what about these movies?

 

[YanMan]

Is there any chance for this movie to be brought to 4k/UHD? I hope so. And if so I will buy it again, but probably only if they fix these issues, which are distracting.

Man I hope so... totally with you on hoping for UHD release of this.

Not sure I was distracted by the issues you mentioned. It is possible they could not be avoided based on the shape of the elements Warner had to work with.

In any case, Warner should be commended for the effort they put into the 50th anniversary restoration. I shudder to think what would have happened to this film if MGM still had the rights to it.

 

[Douglas R]

As RAH mentions in his review of several years ago, there are a few tiny and seemingly fixable flaws in this blu-ray release. I've noticed them since I first got this blu-ray, but here's one.....at 1:16:50 you'll see a cut where there seem to be maybe a few missing frames. In I think two other places in this movie you see the same thing in the blu-ray. For any movie, this would be distracting, but in a movie of this quality, shot on 70mm, it seems strange.

As I said earlier in this thread, the jump cut at around 1:16:50 during a dialogue scene on the galley between Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and Arrius (Jack Hawkins) has always been there - I noticed it even in the 70mm roadshow prints. There was additional dialogue filmed with Arrius (discussing the death of his wife and son if I recall correctly from seeing the script) which was cut before theatrical showings.

 

[benbess]

Another of the missing frames is at about 1:36:10....I know it's not ideal, but if the frame from the OCN is missing there, what about putting in a color-corrected frame or two from a 70mm print? Not ideal, I realize, but perhaps better than the strange jump that happens here and elsewhere in this blu-ray. How did the legendary quality control of Warner Home Video let these flaws remain? Probably I don't understand the challenges of inserting frames from inferior sources into the the OCN, although it does seem that in other films that has been done for the blu-ray release....

I do think that Ben-Hur needs to be remastered for 4k/UHD.

 

[Richard V]

Ramming speed! Jack Hawkins is as great in this movie as he in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Both times he plays flawed characters in a compelling way....What are his other great roles?

Zulu, Lawrence of Arabia

 

[RolandL]

Zulu, Lawrence of Arabia

From Zulu:

Death waits you! You have made a covenant with death, and with Hell you are in agreement. You're all going to die! Don't you realize? Can't you see? You're all going to die! Die! Death awaits you all!

 

[Alan Tully]

Another of the missing frames is at about 1:36:10....I know it's not ideal, but if the frame from the OCN is missing there, what about putting in a color-corrected frame or two from a 70mm print? Not ideal, I realize, but perhaps better than the strange jump that happens here and elsewhere in this blu-ray. How did the legendary quality control of Warner Home Video let these flaws remain? Probably I don't understand the challenges of inserting frames from inferior sources into the the OCN, although it does seem that in other films that has been done for the blu-ray release....

I do think that Ben-Hur needs to be remastered for 4k/UHD.

The print idea would never work, even with all the amazing kit they have at their disposal it would never match, & the flash of the frames going through would be a lot worse than the jump cuts, which I noticed, but they didn't bother me at all. Maybe a computer program could recreate the missing frames moving the action on the required amount from the last frame to the first frame after the jump cut & moving the film grain as well, or you'd notice the grain freeze, but why bother? I'd think hardly anyone noticed the jump cut.

 

[haineshisway]

Everyone is assuming these "jump cuts" weren't there originally, when Doug R already has told you at least one of them was always part of the release. I cannot imagine why the OCN of this film would have missing frames.

 

[benbess]

Everyone is assuming these "jump cuts" weren't there originally, when Doug R already has told you at least one of them was always part of the release. I cannot imagine why the OCN of this film would have missing frames.

Because I don't notice any of my other favorite big budget films from the 1950s having missing frames from the film. Would quality control be that lax on the biggest film of 1959? I think not.

 

[Allansfirebird]

Because I don't notice any of my other favorite big budget films from the 1950s having missing frames from the film. Would quality control be that lax on the biggest film of 1959? I think not.

There's a shot in Wyler's The Big Country that has a jump-cut right in the middle of a scene between Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons. Also, a similar jump cut at the end of Forbidden Planet where a line or two from Leslie Nielsen was omitted. Seems to me this wasn't an unknown practice for the time.

 

[haineshisway]

Happened all the time. Sometimes they put a different word in the mouth of an actor - always there. If it happened during last-minute editing then it happened. No one noticed this junk back then, only now.

 

[RichMurphy]

Because I don't notice any of my other favorite big budget films from the 1950s having missing frames from the film. Would quality control be that lax on the biggest film of 1959? I think not.

Happened all the time. Sometimes they put a different word in the mouth of an actor - always there. If it happened during last-minute editing then it happened. No one noticed this junk back then, only now.

The jump cut in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN as Gene Kelly lowers Cyd Charisse in the "Broadway Melody" number "jumped" out at me since the first time I saw the film in the 1970s. I know that it was probably due to combining two different takes of the dance sequence, but man did it take me out of the movie for a moment.

 

[Robert Harris]

Jump cut in Spartacus.

 

[benbess]

In RAH's original review, he writes: "In over 200 minutes of film, I noted no major problems. A couple of mis-cuts, which will never be noticed."

I think there might be c. 3-4 different instances of missing frames in the blu-ray....But perhaps that was there in the original film?

 

[Michel_Hafner]

If frames are missing without artistic intent then today it's not a big deal to interpolate them digitally at a quality level you have to step trhough the single frames to maybe be able to tell if it's original or synthetic. Seamless at 24 fps. So not fixing these things for new releases is lazy as far as I'm concerned.