Ben-Hur (1959) - 42 mistakes

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

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.

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

Continuity: When Ben Hur finally defeats the bad guy, his opponent's wheel disintegrates. However, as the chariot flips over, we see a complete wheel on both sides.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Factual error: The galley during the battle seen 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.

Factual error: The actors and stunt drivers use only two reins to control the four horses that pull each chariot in the race. However, charioteers in ancient Rome used separate harnesses with two reins controlling each horse. In a race such as the one depicted in the movie, where four horses draw the chariot (two-horse races were common, as well), a real charioteer from the era would be holding eight reins.

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

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.

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.

Continuity: When Judah comes back to his house and meets Esther her curls over the forehead change several times throughout the scene.

Audio problem: When the rowers in the Roman galley were going normal speed, you could tell that the drum was sounding before the drummer hit it.

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.

Continuity: After Judah knocks out the prison guards he grabs a spear and busts into Messala's room. Two other guards standing far down the hall start running after him. Seen from inside the room, the guards enter directly after Judah.

Continuity: During the scene when Ben-Hur meets his servant, Simonides, he removes his turban, and his hair is flat and sweaty. The shot pans to his mother, and when it cuts back, his hair is dry and combed.

Factual error: Before the chariot race, Sheik Ilderim pins a Star of David on Ben Hur's belt. The Star of David did not become a Jewish symbol until the Middle Ages.

Revealing: When Judah and Messala hurl their spears into the wooden beam, the projectiles follow very straight paths all the way across the room to their targets, whereas due to gravity they'd really travel curved paths, practically parabolic, requiring a skilled thrower to aim above the target. What's revealed here is that the spears were rigged to slide on thin wires, to assure that they'd hit the target on cue.

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.

Continuity: At one time during the chariot race Judah and Messala are going side by side. Then Judah steers his horses against the inner wall and almost comes to a complete halt. However, an instant later he is abreast with Messala again.

Continuity: When Messala goes to the roof terrace after the tile incident to check the loose tiles and he drops one on the floor, there are broken pieces on the floor that haven't been there before.

Continuity: During his brief escape Judah threatens Messala who is standing behind his desk. The arrangement of things on the desk changes many times throughout the scene, most noticeably the three books on the right.

Factual error: When Messala is passing through Nazareth, he says they will be in Jerusalem by tomorrow night. Nazareth is approximately 90 miles from Jerusalem. It would take three days to cover that distance, not one.

Revealing: When Miriam, Esther and Tirzah find shelter from the storm in a cave, the storm is violent and the wind is howling, but the trees visible in the background are barely swaying.

Revealing: During the naval battle, the same footage of a sinking galley is used several times, apparently to represent the sinking of several galleys.

Factual error: In the movie, Pontius Pilate is appointed to be governor of Judea around AD 32 (Judah is enslaved in AD 28, spends 3 years as a slave and then at least one year with Arrius before he meets Pilate, who is still not appointed). In reality, Pilate was the governor of Judea from AD 26-36.

Continuity: Right before the chariot race, Sheik Ilderim is on Judah's left side, pointing out the spikes on Messala's wheels. There's a shot of the wheels and then back to Judah, where the Sheik is now on Judah's right side. Judah holds the Sheik's forearm as the fanfare starts. Then a long shot, showing the Sheik, now on Judah's left side again, and Judah removing his hand from the Sheik's forearm.

Continuity: In the first scene of part 2 the Romans are relaxing in the bath. Then the arrival of Sheik Ilderim is announced, and when the camera switches to him the positions of many extras in the scene change, like one masseur in red (first kneeling, then squatting).

Continuity: After Tirzah makes the tiles fall from the roof there is a wide shot from above, showing Judah and Tirzah at a different part of the wall than where the tiles fell.

Continuity: When Ben-Hur is about to be transferred from his cell to Tirus after the tile struck the governor, his hands are being tied by the centurions. When he strikes the incoming centurion, his hands are free.

Factual error: There is a Holstein cow in the manger scene near the beginning of the movie. Holsteins were created through cross-breeding in Germany in the 19th century, so its appearance at Jesus' birth is impossible.

Factual error: Just before the chariot race, governor Pilate tells the audience that there are contestants from Carthage and Corinth taking part in the race. Carthage and Corinth were destroyed by Rome in 146 BC. The movie is set in the time of emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD).

Revealing: The chariot race is about to begin, and Messala arrives late. As he's backing his team into position, look at the left side of the left-most horse's neck. You can see the reins rubbing the black dye off. (Solid black horses are *extremely* rare).

Revealing: When Stephen Boyd is showing off the spikes on his chariot wheel you can see welding beads along the projecting hub.