Trivia for
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) More at IMDbPro »

• The sea battle was filmed near Livorno, Italy. Many extras apparently lied about being able to swim, and due to political troubles engulfing Italy at the time, tension between Fascist supporters of Benito Mussolini and their opponents was evident.
  
  
• Forty-eight cameras were used to film the sea battle, a record for a single scene.
  
  
• A staged fire on one of the ships got out of control. Armor-clad extras had to jump in the water. There is conflicting information as to whether any of them were killed.
  
  
• The first attempt to film the chariot race was on a set in Rome, but there were problems with shadows and the racetrack surface. Then one of the chariots' wheels came apart and the stuntman driving it was thrown in the air and killed. See also Ben-Hur (1959).
  
  
• The set was abandoned and a new one built in Culver City. 42 cameras were used to film the race and 50,000 feet of film consumed. Second unit director B. Reeves Eason offered a bonus to the winning driver. The final pile-up was filmed later. No humans were seriously injured during the US production, but several horses were killed.
  
  
• At $3.9 million, the most expensive silent movie ever.
  
  
• MGM inherited the production when the company was founded in 1924; with the film over budget and getting out of control, the studio halted production and relocated the shoot from Italy to California, under the supervision of Irving Thalberg. William Wyler, one of sixty assistant directors for the chariot race, went on to direct the remake Ben-Hur (1959).
  
  
• The religious scenes, plus Ben Hur's entrance into Rome and some interior scenes that occur thereafter, were shot in two-strip Technicolor.
  
  
• The famous chariot scene was filmed at what is now the intersection of LaCienega and Venice Boulevards in Los Angeles.
  
  
• This production used more that 600 gallons of Max Factor's Liquid Body Make-up.
  
  
• According to The Guinness Book of World Records (2002), the movie contains the most edited scene in cinema history. Editor Lloyd Nosler compressed 200,000 feet (60,960 meters) of film into a mere 750 feet (228.6 meters) for the chariot race scene - a ratio of 267:1 (film shot to film shown).
  
  
• Both Rudolph Valentino and Buck Jones were considered for the role of Judah Ben-Hur.
  
  
• All the religious scenes are in Technicolor, but the chariot race is not - an intense amount of lighting was required to shoot Technicolor, making it extremely difficult.
  
  
• Second-unit director B. Reeves Eason had 62 assistants when working on the chariot race.
  
  
• Author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda became friendly with many of the cast and crew while in Rome revising his book "The Great Gatsby". They attended a cast/crew dinner on Christmas Eve, honoring director Fred Niblo and his wife Enid Bennett. Zelda Fitzgerald, among others, signed one of the dinner menus, which became the possession of Carmel Myers, who played Iras in the film. The menu is now in the archives of the University of South Carolina library.
  
  
• Many of the scenes in this film, interestingly enough, were NOT remade in the more popular 1959 version of the story. Among these are the three Wise Men's journey through the desert, Mary and Joseph seeking refuge in the manger, and the scene in which Messala enlists the help of Iris to discover the identity of his chariot-racing opponent.
  
  
• Abraham L. Erlanger was the producer of a very successful stage production that had been running for 25 years. In 1922, two years after the play's last tour, the Goldwyn Company purchased the film rights, though Erlanger insisted on a generous profit participation deal and total approval over every detail of the production.
  
  
• Advertised as "The Picture Every Christian Ought to See!"
  
  
• The budget skyrocketed due to all sorts of accidents, recastings and a change of director halfway through production.
  
  
• Although the film grossed $9 million on its initial run, its huge cost overruns and the deal with rights-holder Abraham L. Erlanger meant that MGM were unable to make good on their initial $4 million investment.
  
  
• Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, was disappointed with the chariot scene as he felt it was too tame. He offered a prize of $100 (worth about 10 times that today) to the winner. This led to a much more competitive race that ended with a horrific crash that is to be seen in the film. That, and another fatal accident, lead to changes in rules of filming and film safety.
  
  
• The cast was claimed to number over 125,000.
  
  
• Despite the fact that there is nudity in this film, it was passed by censors of that time because it dealt with religion.
  
  
• Future stars Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Myrna Loy were uncredited extras in the chariot race scenes. Crawford and Loy also played slave girls.
  
  
• Clark Gable and then future wife Carole Lombard first met in late 1924 while working as extras on the set of this film. They would run into each other off and on again for the next year and a half (the two also appeared as extras in the epic The Johnstown Flood (1926)), but would not formally meet until 1931.
  
  
• William Wyler was an assistant director on the original Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and 34 years later directed its remake, Ben-Hur (1959).
  
  
• Producer Irving Thalberg was short of "hedonist slave girls", so he called up Hal Roach and Mack Sennett to ask a favor: to loan out their 'bathing beauties'. They were happy to oblige, as many girls were making their film debuts. Among the group of 20 or so girls who eventually appeared in the film: Janet Gaynor, Carole Lombard, Fay Wray, and Joyzelle Joyner.
  
  

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