MovieChat Forums > 55 Days at Peking (1963) Discussion > Charlton Heston, 1923-2008

Charlton Heston, 1923-2008


Charlton Heston has died at age 84 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for several years. Whatever one thinks of his political views (of which I was not a fan), he was a major screen presence, with a lot of great films under his belt (and I don't mean gunbelt). It makes the expected release this year of one of his noted epics, 55 DAYS AT PEKING, all the more noteworthy and poignant. Another lost link to the great era of postwar American filmmaking...they're vanishing quickly now. RIP, Chuck.

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I totally support your statement. I too didn't agree with his political stance, but Charlton Heston was one of the truly great motion picture stars of postwar Hollywood. From BEN HUR, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, PLANET OF THE APES, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (and his comic turn in THE PIGEON THAT TOOK ROME) to this movie, he was a legend.

I am - SUPERFLUOUS!!!

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I agree, but now 55 DAYS has been inexplicably delayed, which is really too bad as I not only want the film but this would have been the year to release it on DVD.

On the other hand, a 50th anniversary edition of TOUCH OF EVIL, this one including the original 1958 theatrical film as well as the so-called "restoration" from 1998 (up till now the only version available on DVD), is set for release Oct. 7. So that's good Chuck news.

Thank you for your post!

(PS -- Very clever of you to say "He was legend", as his 1971 THE OMEGA MAN was, of course, based on the novel "I Am Legend"!)

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Thank YOU hobnob53 for your post, I had no idea about the 50th anniversary edition of Touch Of Evil.

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You're most welcome, vivauruguay85! Interestingly, I had placed a post on the TOUCH site about the possibility of a 50th anniversary edition (I had hoped from Criterion) that would include the actual theatrical release as well as the '98 reconstructed version, and never thought there'd be one...then just a couple of weeks later, there it was, from Universal (along with special editions of VERTIGO, REAR WINDOW and PSYCHO...again!). Regards.

PS -- And still no word of a 55 DVD release date! I guess the 2009 date I heard rumored about may be true. I am not happy!

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Too bad about the delayed release of 55 Days At Peking. I have yet to see the film to be completely honest, but I've become quite a Heston-fanatic lately and really want to see this. We have it on region 2 where I live, but since there will probably be a much better edition I can wait for it.

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A flawed but entertaining film, one of my favorites of its type. When the proper release finally comes out and you see it, I'd be interested in hearing your review of the movie. From the look of the other two Bronston films released so far, the DVD of 55 should be of excellent quality.

Regards!

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You can count on it. A 2-disc edition would be awesome!

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And it should indeed be a 2-disc DVD. I just realized today (July 29) was the date the film was to have been released. A sad day!

Anyway, looking forward to more exchanges with you on 55 after you've seen it. My favorite component: Dimitri Tiomkin's music; the film's only two Oscar nominations were for its score and the song "So Little Time", heard after the end of the film, as (I presume) audiences filed out of the cinemas in 1963. But it was even on a VHS of the film.

But I guess no Chuck H. commentary. Read his memoirs, if you can find a copy, in which he has some funny recollections about what a trial this movie was to make.

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Quite a coincidence, I'm reading the book right now and I'm at the part where he's about to shoot the film we're talking about ;)

When was the movies date announced, and did they say anyhing at all about any extras?

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I never heard a specific release date, but the first two Bronston films -- EL CID and THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE -- were released on January 29 and April 29, respectively, and July was mentioned as the expected release month for 55 -- I said July 29 because of the odd confluence of dates -- each film three months apart, each released on Tuesday, the 29th of the month. Anyway, it obviously didn't happen. For that matter, there is no announced release date for the remaining (and least) Bronston film, CIRCUS WORLD, which had the aforementioned schedule held might have been released on October 28 (releases almost always occur on Tuesdays). I only hope they issue 55 first!

Have heard nothing about extras, but in general they're supposed to follow the basic lines as the first two DVD releases -- extensive commentary, film background, interviews, trailers, etc. I've heard that the reason for the hold-up is that they're trying to get the best possible print, and restoration is taking longer than expected. I'm still hoping it'll come out this year but another rumor has it delayed until sometime in 2009.

Chuck's book has a number of errors in it but is enjoyable, although he takes a lot more pride in some of the lousy movies he did in the 70s than he should.

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By errors, what do you mean?

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I mean he gives incorrect accounts of some things, mixes up things like the order movies came out, dates, some notes about other people, that sort of stuff -- and of course omits anything that casts him in a bad light, as for instance his crude and rather nasty remarks and sarcastic comments about Sophia Loren, his co-star in EL CID. He was apparently jealous of the attention given her by the film's crew and later made cutting remarks about "broads" wanting all the attention and so on to the press, referring to her. The crew disliked him intensely for his obvious coldness towards Sophia, generally regarded as one of the nicest and easiest persons to work with anywhere in films. (On the other hand, the crew loved him for protecting them against Ava Gardner on 55, who was habitually drunk and abusive on the set.)

As to outright mistakes, there's nothing particularly major that I recall, although at the moment, it's been so many years since I've read the book that only one item immediately comes to mind: while making BEN-HUR in Italy, he recounted that over in Spain Tyrone Power suddenly died while filming another Biblical epic, SOLOMON AND SHEBA. Heston wrote that Ty collapsed while carrying his co-star, Gina Lollabrigida, up a long flight of steps. This is complete nonsense; he suffered a massive heart attack while filming a long and exhausting dueling scene with George Sanders, and died a few minutes later. Heston also claimed to have been the first one told that HUR's producer, Sam Zimbalist, had died of a heart attack after arriving home at his rented villa shortly after leaving the studio in Rome (this within days of Power's death). Most other accounts do not credit Heston with having been the first told this news. There are many similar tales, mainly variations on the truth, that permeate the book, but in this Heston isn't much different from most stars' books -- everyone remembers things differently, or out of order, or in ways that reflect best upon themselves. You should just treat the book as an interesting reflection about his career without necessarily accepting every date and detail as (to use an apt expression for Charlton Heston) gospel.

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What I've read about the Loren account is that he was a bit p'ed off about her taking such a long time in the dressing room all the time, being late on sets etc, never have I heard that the crew disliked him intensely, he's infamous for being one of the nicest guys there ever was in Hollyood, so I can't believe it was THAT bad. He admits he was not always very nice towards Loren, and felt bad about it. I'd love to read something about this from Loren herself, that would be really interesting.

BTW, I thought Loren was a well-known diva?

As for the errors, well, like you said those things happen. Memory fades over the decades.

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Yeah, I've read that Loren was taking too much time dressing, etc. As to her being a diva, who knows? (Not me!) I have repeatedly heard it said she's very nice and that film crews generally like her, so for what that's worth.... I think Heston was sometimes overly macho and a bit self-important, at least when it came to women, and if he admits he was a bit hard on Sophia I guess there may have been something to that. I don't think he liked being pushed around (obviously!), and didn't like seeing such things happen to defenseless, lower-level people on movie sets, and he would come to their defense if he saw someone being taken advantage of. Chuck wasn't a bad guy; but still, maybe a bit of a prima donna in his own right.

I was always amused by the tale that Gore Vidal told Christopher Fry and William Wyler not to tell Chuck that he (Vidal) had introduced a homosexual subtext into the relationship between Judah Ben-Hur and Massala, because Heston was so homophobic it would have freaked him out. This story came out years after the movie was made and Heston heatedly denied any problems, while also denying that such a subtext even exists! (Which it very clearly does, of course: thereby validating Vidal's fears, if not his precise recollection.) But apparently Wyler worried about the same thing, which seems to back up Vidal's version. Whatever...the story is amusing, and there's probably more than a little truth to it.

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I don't believe he's a primadonna, never heard anything of the sort before. Only thing I have heard and know for sure is that he demands the very best from everyone on the set, which is very understandable.

The gay subtext was very, vry subtle I mus say. If I hadn't read about it I would never have suspected there to be one. Where did he get the "fact" about Heston being a homophobic?

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Oh, I think even the "nicest" actors are all at least a little bit prima donnas sometimes -- you don't have all that attention lavished on you without having some inflated sense of self poke through on occasion.

Of course, in an age when most actors need their entourages of flaks and flunkies and paid imbeciles to help manage their lives, and generally grew up spoiled or in some flaky circumstance, the experiences of an earlier era of stars, who grew up in straightened circumstances, endured depression and war, and weren't as catered to, as artificial, as today's crowd, are very different.

Remember that Chuck balked at first about taking the fourth-billed role in THE BIG COUNTRY because he thought he should be getting higher billing than that by then. His agent brought him down to Earth by telling him he didn't think he was that sort of guy, to care about his billing over the quality of the part. Heston was properly chastised, and took the role, which of course led directly to B-H. So he had some of the prima d. in him, as they all really do.

I'm surprised you found the gay subtext in B-H so subtle; it stuck out to me almost from the first time I saw it. In fact, for years I wondered if it was really intended, until I learned that Vidal had deliberately (if indirectly) added it to the mix of the plot.

But I have to commend Heston for thanking Christopher Fry for his contributions to the screenplay at the '59 Oscars (as did Wyler). Both men felt that the sole credited screenwriter, Karl Tunberg, who had initially agreed to share credit with Fry -- who did most of the final screenplay -- had reneged on his word and was attempting to take credit for work which wasn't his. Tunberg had been the first writer hired but his draft was deemed very weak, and Vidal was brought onto the film. He injected various ideas (see above!) and much dialogue, then suggested they hire Fry, a distinguished playwright, to do the final script. Vidal didn't care much about getting screen credit but as most of the final work was Fry's Wyler wanted him to get co-credit with Tunberg. Tunberg at first agreed, but then went back on his word and took it to the Writer's Guild, the final arbiter of screenplay credit, of which he was a past president. Despite the unrefuted evidence of the extent of Fry's participation the Guild stuck by its old pal and gave him sole credit. Heston and Wyler both denounced this, and the public fracas was so great that when HUR's Oscars were awarded, the only one of its 12 nominations that lost was for the screenplay. Heston and Wyler were met with a few boos later that evening when they thanked Fry in their acceptance speeches (by which time Tunberg had lost), but they were right. Tunberg always blamed them for his loss, but in reality he had only himself to blame: if he had kept his word and agreed to share credit (no one was talking about omitting him), he most likely would have won the Oscar. By attempting to cheat others out of their due, he ended up humiliating only himself -- the only HUR nominee not to win an Oscar. He wasn't a particularly good screenwriter, and I always wondered why he'd been hired to do so a big and complex a picture as BEN-HUR in the first place.

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Didn't he also say that he didn't really want the part because it wasn't that much screentime in the movie for him?

Anyways, about the subtext, I think the idea of putting that in is retarded, I don't see a point, what did it give us? Nothing. A suggested bisexual Ben-Hur & Messala was not necessary in the least. Their past as best friends is all that is needed to understand their relationship to one another.

And about the Oscar speech, I always hear that they got booed a bit, but I never hear any of that when I watch Heston's speech, must be very few people booing.

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Well, the screen time issue is basically the same issue as billing. Even a "good guy" like Gregory Peck could get prima-donna-ish (as he did on THE BIG COUNTRY) when the need, or mood, arose. Even if the actors have a valid point, they may still behave in p.d. ways!

I disagree with you about the gay subtext in B-H, I see nothing wrong with it. In fact one could argue it much better explained the ferocity of Messala's anger and the viciousness of his retribution against the Hur family -- a spurned lover being much the greater enemy -- than the loss of a mere friendship. It may not have been "necessary", as you say, but that doesn't invalidate it or make the film less than it otherwise might have been. Certainly I think terming it "retarded" is an unnecessary, and basically meaningless, characterization.

It was Heston himself who claimed he was met with scattered boos when he mentioned Fry. I've only seen a small portion of his acceptance speech, and never the references to Fry, so I can't say what it sounded like. Things like a few boos -- no one claimed it was an en masse uprising of the audience! -- usually wouldn't be picked up by mikes on the podium anyway, which is the main source of sound on films of Oscar ceremonies in that era. Actually, since I've never seen or heard most of his speech, I can't know for certain he even mentioned Fry -- I have only his account. Did he? Again, people will mistakenly recall things happening in a way in which they did not, precisely, occur. (In this case, whether he mentioned Fry, and whether he received a few boos for doing so.)

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He mentioned Fry, you can see his Oscar-speech on the 4-disc edition of Ben-Hur.

Well, I have to disagree with you about the gay-subtext, I just don't see it as you do. I wouldn't call their friendship "mere", they Messala saved his life, they grew up together etc. Maybe that is because I value friendship as much as I do, though.

About the screentime VS billing, it happens quite often that some actors who are not in a movie that long gets a top billing because of their name. Seems we misunderstood each other there.

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Hob, I have to dissent strongly on the so-called gay subtext of "Ben Hur." Heston himself was quite vociferous in denying there was any such subtext. When someone asked him about that he said, "That's bullsxxxx. No, that's Gore Vidal, which is the same thing." (a sentiment I'd concurr with!) Heston's book I think makes it abundantly clear that nothing that Vidal wrote for Ben-Hur was ever used because his journals reveal a good deal of frustration over what Vidal was turning out as unusable.

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Okay, Eric, that's what makes these discussions so great -- voicing different opinions. To me the subtext is obvious, and I discerned it long before I ever even knew Vidal (or Fry) had anything to do with the movie.

I've read what Heston said, but perhaps you should allow the possibility that he was indeed angry at the thought and chose to so vehemently deny it out of discomfort at the idea of such a relationship being hinted at in his proudest film. This is possible, you know. As I said somewhere, not everything even Chuck Heston wrote is gospel: like everyone else, he remembers what and how he prefers, which may not jive with reality. Not a matter of being untruthful, just remembering things in a particular way, as most people do. For what it's worth, Wyler also saw, understood and liked this supposedly non-existent subtext, according to his biographers. In the end, it doesn't make much difference anyway, does it?

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Actually, I think what gives Heston denial more authenticity is that when you go back and read "Actor's Life" you're seeing negative views expressed on what Vidal is churning out as well as a sense of Wyler not finding it usable, and this issue of the gay subtext is not once coming up. Heston then says in a present-day aside (1978) that he is quick to emphasize that nothing Vidal submitted was used in light of the fact that by the 70s Vidal was making more and more a habit of taking credit for being the author of the Ben-Hur screenplay which didn't sit well with Heston, especially given how his journal also reveals just how extensive his admiration for Christopher Fry's role in putting the script together was. So in this case, Heston's argument is strengthened by virute of the fact that we have his primary source recollections of how extensive was Vidal really contributing material that got used during the shoot (which gets back to why I think "The Actor's Life" is in a total class by itself as a primary source document of Hollywood history) and the entries at the time were revealing that in the end, it was nothing.

On the matter of what Wyler's biographers say, I think a valid question is whether the source for that really goes beyond Vidal himself. And frankly I have always felt that Vidal is the kind of guy who would love to push this story as his way of cackling with smug self-satisfaction, "Look at what I sloughed into a film that those Bible Belt rubes love so much." I really felt it was inexcusable that in the 1994 documentary on the film, they allowed Vidal to push this story and Heston was not even invited to participate in it.

I didn't see the subtext at all, because it just seemed self-explanatory to me that (1) the two had been close friends as children, and the bond deepened by the fact that Messala had saved Judah's life at one point and (2) the reason for Messala's anger over being rejected is ultimately, as Judah says late in the game, due to the poisoned influence of serving for Rome's interests.

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Hi Eric,

Well, I don't disagree with what you say about Vidal, never one of my personal favorites, but there's a difference between Wyler et al not accepting his dialogue or scripting, and stating that NONE of his ideas was included in some fashion in the final film. I'm not sure even Heston went that far. The final script was mainly Fry's, but he wasn't the sort who would have seen this subtext as something to be avoided. In fact, perhaps Vidal was taking credit for an element introduced by Fry -- who can say for sure? In any case, given his many errors and his own strong opinions, there is no reason to blindly accept Heston's point of view any more than anybody else's. And how do you know that the journals Heston published represent the totality of his writings -- unedited, unculled, unaltered? I can virtually guarantee that they do not. I think you err in resolutely accepting Chuck's version of events to the exclusion of or with dismissiveness toward any other accounts or possibilities.

Point is, for myself, as I said before, this gay inference always struck me as obvious, and I know others who think the same thing (and we're all straight, by the way...not that there's anything wrong, yada yada...!). And I don't believe that B-H appeals mostly only to "Bible-Belt rubes". I'm certainly not one of those, and I certainly like this movie -- more with each viewing, actually. Ultimately I don't care whether this inference is really present, whether it's intended, or who was responsible for what. The film itself is equally enjoyable and superb regardless of whether one thinks this subtext (I MUST find another word!!) is there or not. To me, it adds little and subtracts nothing, and even if it were not intended, the fact that many people see it is I think a tribute to the skill of Fry's screenplay: the audiences can see the men's relationship on a variety of levels, which is a mark of good writing. (Not to get carried away, but I also believe this same background colors the relationship between Messala and Drusus.) I don't accept Vidal's story at face value (and he was not the original, or even second or third, source of my hearing about this alleged undercurrent), or Wyler's biographers', or anyone else's, including Heston's. I simply see what I see in the film, read what others have to say, and make my own judgments. But even if it could be somehow "proven" conclusively that no such subtext was intended or included, still, I see it, and it doesn't detract from the film...and I believe many others think the same thing. Personally, I see no harm in it. As I said in my previous post, ultimately I think it makes very little difference to the film.

Shouldn't we be discussing this on the BEN-HUR board?! Or was Heston closeted in 55 DAYS too?! You know, clad in what Ava referred to as "that tight uniform" and everything....

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No, I wouldn't say that Ben Hur only appeals to the Bible-Belt (of which I'll admit to being part of; I attended the same college Billy Graham went to), but it certainly is embraced by that segment of the populace as part of the overall context of how in the 50s and up to the mid-60s, there was a large number of religious oriented movies, some well-done others totally exploitative ("Salome", "The Prodigal", "Solomon And Sheba" which gives us the premise of Solomon having a torrid romance with the one woman the Bible describes him being totally circumspect with) and how for the most part people of traditional faith do look back on that time period as a time where they see an era where there was more respect for their basic beliefs than there has been in recent decades.

Vidal is rather notorious for his total disdain of those with those beliefs and I think the way he tries to so openly push this subtext when his final contribution to the script is regarded as not much, is what I object more to, this sense of him as the final and best authority on the subject which is how the 1994 documentary treated him.

My point is that whether you think Heston's journal is complete enough or not, it is more compelling evidence than if we were just going by his autobio written decades after the fact, because it is a primary source that has been made available to us. I would be more impressed if we had things like memos from Wyler to Vidal or Fry during that point in time. For myself, I'm just going by the standard that in Histioriography 101 we were taught is usually the one more apt to have told us a truer picture of how things unfolded. I think the fact that Heston's entries minimize Vidal's actual participation *without* mentioning once the issue of the subtext is what emerges as more compelling because in the end they're leaving me with a picture of someone who wasn't in much of a position to ultimately determine something like this. A bigger red flag would be if a Heston entry was, "I couldn't believe what Vidal supposedly floated today about Judah and Messala....." That's just my take viewing things through the lens of a scholar.

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Well, as I said before, I basically share your antipathy, or skepticism, about Vidal, so I'm not arguing the merits of his claims. But again I say that we don't truly know Heston's primary material for the simple reason that there is no way of knowing whether what was published is unexpurgated; I doubt very much that it is.

Nonetheless, and again my apologies for repeating myself, I simply read the film in the manner I've described. It wasn't Vidal or anyone else from whom I first drew that suggestion; in fact later accounts allegedly confirming that understanding were something of a surprise to me. If others are lying, if no such subtext was intended, that's fine, I don't much care. But the men's relationship still strikes me as having a gay background context, and I reached that conclusion pretty much the same way anyone infers or reaches conclusions about a film or play -- based on what they see. Repeating yet again, while it's an interesting aside, this subtext (real or imagined, intended or not) makes little overall difference to my attitude toward the movie, nor does it affect the film's entertainment value in any noticeable or relevant way. It's just something that's there. Or not.

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Oh, certainly it isn't completely unedited. Heston said in the intro he edited out things that were mostly recapping games of tennis with friends and other minutiae that he didn't think the reader would find interesting, but he didn't leave out things that were very personal such as musing on the death of his father, or even his one brief moment of serious marital difficulty in the early 70s so overall there was a very candid tone to it. It'd be interesting if his journal, which he kept adding to even after he published it, was donated to any kind of library where we might find out more in the future what he said about other projects.

We'll respectfully agree to disagree on how to interpret the scene itself, but this is an interesting discussion on the nature of the whole scholarly process of searching to get at the facts of film production history.

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Your second paragraph is my whole point: films are meant (usually) to be interpreted, or are at least open to various interpretations, which may be at variance with what was seen or intended by the filmmakers themselves. That doesn't matter much; what's important is to open up new trains of thought and new ways of looking at and gaining insight into a scene, character, even the whole movie. That's why it's not very important to me what the actors or writers or director actually saw or thought or intended (though obviously this is a factor that must be explored and taken into account). Audiences will see films in their own way, and simply because a particular view of some aspect may not have been intended does not render it an invalid interpretation.

We'll respectfully agree to agree that we two is really good scholars of them there movin' pitchers!

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I agree with you. He has been much vilified because of his right-wing views, his stand on the Vietnam War, his pro-gun campaign, his "by God!" religious sanctimoniousness and so on. Had I ever met him, I could have never agreed with him in a thousand years on any of his views because I am a Socialist. I once read his autobiography, and although I enjoyed the chapters he dedicates to his great epic films I otherwise found it too egocentric. But still, I like him very much as an actor as I like John Wayne, another famous right-wing radical. And I think I can say without question, and many will agree with me, that without Heston today there would be no "Ben-Hur" and "El Cid".

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I don't think it's correct to say that without Charlton Heston there would never have been a Ben-Hur or El Cid. Ben-Hur had been in development at MGM for years, going back at least until 1953, well before Heston was a major movie star or associated with "epics". Even after it was green-lighted and preliminary work had begun he had not yet been cast and other actors such as Rock Hudson and Burt Lancaster were being considered. Similarly, Samuel Bronston had decided to make El Cid well before Heston was offered the role.

In fact, after he made El Cid Bronston wanted Heston to star in The Fall of the Roman Empire, but Heston turned it down because he didn't want to do another period epic film. So the producer offered him 55 Days at Peking instead, which appealed to Heston because it was set in a more "modern" era. They had already begun building the massive sets for Fall and tore them all down to jump 55 into production first -- just because that was the film Heston wanted to do! But when 55 was finished they tore its sets down and rebuilt the ones for TFOTRE, which ended up starring Stephen Boyd.

So there's no question whatsoever that both Ben-Hur and El Cid would have been made with or without Heston. The only issue is whether they'd have been as good or memorable with another actor in the leads. For what it's worth, The Fall of the Roman Empire wound up being one of the most expensive movies ever filmed and a huge commercial flop, and one wonders if it might have fared better had Heston been the star...though its losses were so enormous that even Heston couldn't have saved it. But the point is, that film was made even without Heston, as the other two would also have been.

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I've read a lot about the genesis of Ben-Hur. I think Burt Lancaster would have been perfect for the role... only ten years earlier. As to Rock Hudson, an actor I like very much in "Giant" and the three comedies he made with Doris Day, he would have been totally miscast in this film, I must say. Heston was just perfect for the role, whether you like it or not.
As to The Fall of the Roman Empire, the reason why Heston turned it down was because he had refused to work again with Sophia Loren after El Cid. In the latter he developed a very tense working relationship with Loren (conflict of egos, you may call it) and he just couldn't stand her. So when he heard that she would be his leading lady in TFOTRE... hell, he said no way!!
I agree with you as to if Heston had been in TFOTRE, the film's commercial response might have been very different. But still, we can not blame Stephen Boyd for the financial failure of that beautiful film.

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Despite his athleticism -- or perhaps because of it -- I just could never see Burt Lancaster as Ben-Hur, at any time. Or Hudson. I don't know who could have filled that part as Heston did. I'm sure there were other passable personages, but no one could have equaled Heston in the role. I don't know why you said "like it or not" because I agree with your sentiments on this!

I've read that business about Heston turning down The Fall of the Roman Empire because of his clashes with Sophia on El Cid and supposedly never wanting to work with her again. I gather there's some truth to this but I've also heard that these stories were much exaggerated (Heston strongly denied any serious problems existed between them), and certainly there was more involved with turning down Fall than simply his leading lady. (Had Loren definitely been cast in that film yet? And how could Heston be sure Bronston wouldn't have stuck her in 55 Days?!)

Whatever role their alleged problems may have played in Heston's decision to pass on TFOTRE, I take Heston at his word that he just didn't want to do another costume drama of the ancient (or medieval) world at that time. That seems both logical and reasonable.

I certainly don't blame Stephen Boyd for Fall's failure, though he's unquestionably the weak link in the film, both from a performance as well as a box-office point of view. I think the picture would probably have done better with a leading man of greater stature or star-power, but a $20,000,000 loss couldn't have been overcome by any actor. The film simply came out at a time when the public was no longer interested in such pictures.

Nice to resume the discussion after a respite of two years!

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Well, it's nice to see that we both like good old Chuck, we both love Ben-Hur and so. And I must say you probably are right when you say [quote] The film simply came out at a time when the public was no longer interested in such pictures[quote].
I absolutely agree. You only have to look at "Cleopatra", released in 1963 at a cost of $40,000,000. It became one of the biggest movie flops of all time, against the $15,000,000 dollar budget on "Ben-Hur" only four years earlier. "Ben-Hur" not only recouped its budget ten times over on its first year but also remained the biggest Oscar-winner film of all time (11) for 38 years, a feat eventually equalled by the ridiculous and dull James Cameron's "Titanic" (???!!!), and still not yet beaten to this day.


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Of course, if Cleopatra had been made at its originally projected cost (about $2,000,000 or so), it would have made money, though obviously it wouldn't have been as lavish as it is. But $43,000,000 damn near killed Fox. The studio was pulled back from the brink thanks to The Longest Day, which bought it time, and then The Sound of Music, which brought it riches once again. And eventually even Cleopatra broke even, and even turned a modest profit, though it took years.

Ben-Hur's $15,000,000 cost might have finished off Metro had it flopped. Luckily the film, unlike Cleopatra, stayed on course, despite the sudden death of its producer, Sam Zimbalist, in Rome during its production in late 1958, and other problems. Unfortunately MGM gradually squandered all the money it made from the film on a number of big-budget but turgid flops through the 60s.

Uncontrolled spending is, of course, what sank Samuel Bronston Studios in just a few years. Bronston didn't skimp on his pictures -- sets, costumes, props, all were of the highest quality and authenticity, no expense spared. But he was so loose with money that everyone had his hand in the till. Heston wrote of his limo driver during 55 Days at Peking complaining that he hadn't been paid in weeks, and his (Heston) going into the office of the studio manager to ask that the guy be paid. "Oh, Chuck, how terrible, of course, we'll pay him today!" But the next day Heston learned that the man had not been paid. This back-and-forth went on for several days until finally one day Heston marched into the manager's office and told him that he had just paid the man's salary in full, that now the studio owed him, and that he wanted his money back before he left the office...whereupon the manager pulled open a drawer with currency in the thousands in dollars, pounds, francs, lire, pesetas and so on. Heston couldn't believe his eyes -- but he got his money, in dollars.

This extravagance and lack of accountability also accounts for why 55 ended up being filmed before Fall. Again according to Chuck, after completing El Cid he had been offered Fall, and had seen the ongoing construction of the massive Roman Forum set, but declined because he didn't want to do another epic of ancient Rome. One of Bronston's men flew back to America with Heston and, after being unable to get him to reconsider, handed him the script for 55 Days at Peking. Heston liked that one and said he'd do it, whereupon the representative told him they'd begin building Bronston's Peking the next day. Heston was astonished because he'd seen the Forum going up, but the man told him that was no problem -- once he cabled back Heston's acceptance of the part in this picture, they'd tear down the Forum and build Peking. Which they did, at a cost of millions...not to mention the millions more they spent tearing down Peking and rebuilding Rome the day after shooting on 55 ended! The Roman Forum became the largest movie set ever constructed, a record it holds to this day. As for Peking, they built so much of it that directors Nick Ray and Andrew Marton had to devise ways of shooting portions of it that weren't really needed in the script -- there was so much of it they felt obliged to get as much on film as possible! But Bronston made a couple of great movies, even though they inevitably hemorrhaged money.

Glad to find someone else who agrees about Titanic 1997. I won't go into it now, but I presume you know why Ben-Hur didn't win all 12 of the Oscars it was nominated for, but only 11?

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I'm really enjoying this discussion!
I already knew about the various causes that precipitated the fall of the Bronston empire in the mid-60s. I've got the DVDs of both El Cid and TFOTRE and they come with several documentaries. It was a shame, because as you say, Sam was making excellent epics and taking infinite care to show great historical accuracy. But it couldn't last. Still if his company had not collapsed, eventually he would have to move into different genres in order to survive once that audiences' tastes changed with the years. And I think he wouldn't contemplate making anything outside the epic genre.
And Ben-Hur didn't win the Oscar for best adapted script because there were four people involved in the writing: Gore Vidal, Christopher Fry, Maxwell Anderson and Karl Tunrberg. But only the latter got his name listed in the credits. So I guess the Academy opted for leaving him out rather than doing an injustice to the other three if awarding Turnberg alone. Very reasonable.

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