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Quotes

Judah Ben-Hur: If I cannot persuade them, that does not mean I will help you... *murder* them. Besides, you must understand this, Messala. I believe in the past of my people, *and* in their future.

Messala: Future? You are a conquered people!

Judah Ben-Hur: You may conquer the land; you may slaughter the people. But that is not the end. We will rise again.

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Trivia

The scene were Judah Ben Hur is nearly tossed out of the chariot during the race was real and unplanned. However, it was Charlton Heston's stunt double, Joe Canutt, son of legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt, who choreographed the race scene, that was flipped up and over the chariot, after he refused to use a safety harness. Although he could have been killed or maimed, Canutt only suffered minor injuries to his chin. The mishap was left in the movie, and the shot of Heston climbing back into the chariot was added later. See more...

Mistake pictures

Movie Mistakes blog

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Ben-Hur (1959) - 45 mistakes

Directed by William Wyler, starring Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Romance

Mistakes
Trivia
Quotes
Corrections
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Continuity: Ben-Hur places his crown on a table when he visits the fallen Messala, but upon returning the table and crown are gone.

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Revealing: During the chariot race, where the contestants are riding towards the screen, tyre tracks from the camera vehicle are clearly visible imprinted in the sand.

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Revealing: When one of the ships collides with the other, you can clearly see that the rowers being hit are dummies.

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Continuity: During the race, when Ben Hur is about to defeat Messala, his opponent's wheel disintegrates. However, as the chariot flips over, we see a complete wheel on both sides.

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Continuity: Count the number of chariots that start the race. Then count the chariots that get thrown out and the number that finish - there's one too many. There are 9 at the start, 6 get thrown out, and 4 finish.

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Continuity: One of the first shots in the picture is a wide angle establishing shot showing a street scene in Jerusalem, with milling people, animals, etc. A tall figure in the background is slowly walking toward the camera. The figure is Charlton Heston, and the shot is an earlier segment of a shot used later in the movie when Ben-Hur is returning home from a trade expedition. Heston's costume is the same, but he's only clearly recognizable in the second sequence. Since the two scenes are set 33 years apart, perhaps the earlier figure is Ben-Hur's father.

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Continuity: When Judah takes rest on his way to Jerusalem funny things happen with his headgear. First, when he lies down it suddenly disappears under his head. Then he falls asleep, and when Balthasar from Alexandria approaches him a little later and he quickly gets up there is nothing under his head and back.

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Continuity: There is a hex bolt holding the spikes to the chariot wheel hub.

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Continuity: When Judah goes to the place where the leper lives, a man tells him it's a cursed place and puts a lettuce or a cabbage on a plate. It has disappeared the shot later.

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Revealing: When the slaves are walking through the desert on their route to Tyros, in several scenes it's obvious that a double is standing in for Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur.

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Continuity: During Ben Hur and Messala's duel on the chariots, Messala's wheel-scythes tear away most of the right hand side of Ben Hur's chariot. When Messala has been thrown and Ben Hur crosses the finish line a few moments later, however, the camera has zoomed out far enough to reveal that his chariot is perfectly intact.

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Revealing: During the race Judah runs into the remains of another chariot and almost falls off the cart. You can see that the guy who is doing the handstand on the railing is a stuntman.

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Continuity: When Arrius makes the galley do a practice race and finally allows them to rest the oars are going up and down from the waves. However, when the camera is close on Judah the oars are perfectly still.

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Deliberate "mistake": During the chariot race, the chariots crash together but the width of the horses make it impossible for them to actually collide. In some instances it is obvious that they are only using 2 horses to shoot the shot when there should be four.

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Continuity: When the Sheik is taking down the bets, his man, who handed him the book, is standing behind him with his hands down. When the camera angle changes, his hands are folded.

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Continuity: At the end of the chariot race, a heavily bloodsoaked Messala is taken to receive medical treatment. While something is done to his legs out of shot (amputation, presumably) an orderly in a clean white tunic leans his whole body weight on Messala to hold him down on the bed as he writhes in agony. When the orderly stands up, we see that his tunic is still spotlessly white.

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Continuity: At the very end, the scaffold that was used to erect the crosses vanishes between shots.

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Continuity: When the baskets are being loaded to be lowered into the Valley of the Lepers, someone loads two heads of lettuce onto a basket. Just as the basket is being lowered, someone else throws in three more heads. When the basket hits the bottom, there are only three heads of lettuce.

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Factual error: The galley during the battle scene is rowed by slaves. Romans during this time period didn't use slaves to row their galleys. Rowers had to be able fight. If not, the Romans would be outnumbered 200 to 30 when they boarded the pirate ship as the pirates rowers would be able to fight.

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Factual error: Quintus Arrius is fighting an enormous fleet of Macedonian pirates. However, Macedonia had been a Roman province since 148 BC and after the defeat of the Cilician pirates by Pompey in 67 BC the Mediterranean was free of pirates. The movie is set nearly 100 years later.

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