Girls, I am telling you, from the Crucifixion on, I could not keep the tears from flowing, during "Ben-Hur." When the dying Messala (Stephen Boyd) breathes his dying hate to Judah (Charlton Heston), telling him the search is not over yet, that his mother, Miriam (Martha Scott) and sister, Tirzah, (Cathy O 'Donnell) are to be found in the Valley Of The Lepers, the story takes a decided turn.
When Judah and Esther (Haya Haraeet) sneak them into the village, so they can witness the prophet called Jesus, and the Cross passes over them, I just gasped with awe. And as the spirit of the Lord was commended to the Father, and we hear Martha Scott scream out, "Tirzah!", and see that their faith has cured them of their ills, the miracle of Easter is revealed to all. The chance for us all to be cured of whatever ails us.
Darlings, I am getting all choked up, just writing about this. But, see for yourselves, with not only Martha and Cathy, but the great Miklos Rosza score!!!!!!!!!!!!
My only question is, what happened to Stephen Boyd, a decent actor, that he could go from something SO A-list, as this, to something SO junky as "The Oscar," with Elke Sommer?????? Even by the standards of trash, it is bad; nowhere near as fun as "Valley Of The Dolls!"
Guess Stephen did not get the miracle he needed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, The Oscar DOES have Tony Bennett as a character named Hymie, talking about "Laying in an alley, twitching like a spastic". That's pretty priceless!
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