The novel BEN HUR has been a perennial favourite in cinema, thanks to the huge, epic, sweeping style which lends itself to the screen - providing you've got the budget to do the book justice, that is. Sadly, the makers of this 1907 version didn't have, nor did they have the rights to adapt the book for the screen. The result is a criminally low budget story which features a bunch of set-pieces in which all of the action is kept off-screen, even the climactic chariot race. As a result the viewer gets to watch lots of extras waving their arms around in crowd scenes, but little of the action itself. As such, this is nothing more than a historical curio.
Review of Ben Hur
