Ben-Hur / The Ten Commandments (2013)

The sound is 5.1 on these films. Spanish/English/French;

subtitles as well.

The aspect ratio of these films is rather narrow, and

will be hard to see unless you have at least a 40" set.

Each film is presented on two discs -split at the normal

theatrical intermission points. That's four discs, total.

Enjoy!

Here we have it Two of the greatest cinematic masterpieces (starring the legendary Charlton Heston) in one blu-ray set! With rich scripting and eye popping color and definition that's razor sharp, this is a nice acquisition for those who desire to just have the films without a whole lot of bells and whistles.

Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd were perfectly cast in their roles of William Wyler's Oscar-winning film BEN-HUR as "Judah Ben-Hur" and "Massala" childhood friends who in adulthood find themselves each possessing opposing political viewpoints that will ultimately test their long standing friendship. BEN HUR is rich in scripting in it's portrayal of human attributes that encompasses just about every facet of emotion that the human spirit can feel or would be forced/challenged to deal with. This movie has it all: Prosperity, Sickness, Jealousy, Dissention, Grief, Bitterness, Anguish, Vengence, Humility, Forgiveness and ultimately Restoration. Not lost on the viewing audience is screen beauty Haya Harareet's absolutley fabulous character acting as "Esther", Ben-Hur's love interest, as she literally watches (with grief and anguish) the man she loves descend into bitterness and anger having been betrayed by his long time friend "Massala".

The second feature is, of course, Cecille B. DeMille's 1956 film of the biblical account of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS starring Charlton Heston as "Moses" and Yul Brynner as "Rameses" which looks just as razor sharp in it's presentation. In the 'big picture' there is really something special here and it represents more than just a transfer to blu-ray.

It is no small secret that the film stock of tens of thousands of old Hollywood classic and vintage films has/is literally crumbling in the vaults and are in desperate need of restoration before they are lost forever. Because of this, it gives me a heart of joy and greatfulness to think that great care and effort is being given (where possible) to meticulously restore the 'classics', as well as many vintage films, so that we will have a legacy of our American film heritage that will be preserved for future generations to come. The first class restoration of these two films are beautiful examples of this process.

Enjoy these lavishly restored presentations they are a visual feast for the eyes!

Closed Captioning (via Subtitles) are included for the hearing impaired.

BEN-HUR SPECIAL FEATURES

1. Commentary by film historian T. Gene Hatcher with Charlton Heston

2. Music-only track showcasing Miklos Rozsa's Award winning score

3. Theatrical Trailers

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SPECIAL FEATURE

1. Commentary by Kathrine Orrison, Author of "Written In Stone"

2. Making of Cecille B. DeMille's epic: The Ten Commandments

3. Newsreel: The Ten Commandments premiere in New York

4. Theatrical Trailers

Buy Ben-Hur / The Ten Commandments (2013) Now

The brilliant restoration and remastering of DeMille's Epic Masterpiece THE TEN COMMANDMENTS is one of the best if not the greatest one I have seen on high definition so far for a classic film. Working with the original Vista-Vision 35mm negative source may account for that. It even surpasses BEN-HUR's remastering that tends to carry slight deficiencies in contrast levels during some dark scenes. TEN COMMANDMENTS turned out 100% perfect. Comparable to the high quality excellence that the Walt Disney Company invests in order to restore their classic animated masterpieces to look better than they ever will in high definition. TEN COMMANDMENTS is not only the most popular Biblical epic of all time, it is the highest grossing one as well in the Biblical genre. Due to the attention to details and dedication poured into the making of this time-less classic film, it should have won Best Picture and all the major award categories below that during the 1957 AMPAS ceremonies. Charlton Heston should have received his first oscar 3 years before and then get a 2nd one in 1960 for Ben-Hur. Edward G.Robinson was perfect in his portrayal of Dathan and should have received the Best Supporting Actor award for that role. I guess Academy members back then enjoyed watching Cantinflas dangling from a balloon in Around the World in 80 Days better than being moved by the finger of God writing His Ten Commandments on granite stone atop Mount Sinai. Both masterpiece Biblical epics should not be missing as part of every home entertainment film collection.

Read Best Reviews of Ben-Hur / The Ten Commandments (2013) Here

Warner Home Video is treating 1.85:1 screen size and 16:9 (1.78:1) as equal sometimes reporting the change and at other times claiming to preserve the 1:85:1 original release ratio though they're not. This applies to at least 4 films released as 2 movie sets on March 12, 2013, but could extend to many more of their Blu-ray discs.

They're bright and they're beautiful in color and in sound, but having already purchased 3 of the four on DVD, I had my sights fixed on upgrading The Ten Commandments and Forrest Gump to HD and was lured in by the price, picking up Ben Hur and The Green Mile as movie bonuses. I started through the Hur/Commandments disks in order and so was treated to Ben Hur in its full native aspect ratio of 2.76:1. Yes that means there are black bars along the top and bottom of the screen, though less so with an HD 16:9 (1.78:1) widescreen then with an old 4:3 (1.33:1) CRT and on my large 1080P 240khz refresh, 1ms response time TV it's just wonderful.

Then I moved onto The Ten Commandments and right away I noticed that during the intro the screen was filled edge to edge and so I thought no great detriment if that short segment had been edited and I was only missing a small bit of the curtain background, but then the feature started and the screen was still filled, edge to edge.

The Ten Commandments was filmed at 1.85:1 and in all my HD purchase up until now I'd come to expect that the days of hacking up film masterpieces were long over. Not so here. I know it is a much smaller edit than it would have been for Ben Hur, but still, every time anyone watches this release, portions of the original film, to the left, to the right, or both, will always be missing. I grabbed the box and checked the back, finding that Warner had given the aspect specification for Ben Hur but omitted the specification for The Ten Commandments (no 1.85:1 callout and no warning that the content had been edited to fit a 16:9 screen)

I bought The Green Mile Forrest Gump at the same time and so I grabbed that box and saw that the Green Mile was clearly called out as 1.85:1, but just as with the Ten Commandments, Forrest Gump was only listed as having been prepared for viewing on a 1080p 16:9 set. Forrest Gump was filmed at 2.35:1, so if it had also been trimmed, that would have been a huge loss of original screen real estate.

Well, I interrupted The Ten Commandments and put on Gump and luckily it's all there, 2.35:1 with the black bars. I then pulled that one out, thinking but what about the Green Mile? If that's the same original size as the Ten Commandments, even though they've listed the unaltered aspect, could they have messed with that one too? Sure enough, hacked. The movie fills up every single pixel and is being cut of at left/right edges.

Was I judging to harshly and were other distributors starting to do the same? I grabbed newly purchased Blue-ray discs by MGM, Universal and Columbia that were also 1.85:1 originals and every one of them had the proper aspect ratio with the black top and bottom bars.

Warner had to corral other studios for the rights to package these films together so I hope they're all available from these other studios or distributors. Check the aspect ratios if you are going to buy from Warner and stay away from anything that or any other dependable reference lists as 1.85:1 unless you're a fan of pan and scan, colorizing and other after run gimmicks. I want to give the series a negative 5 stars, but 1 star is all that's allowed, sorry. I'm returning both for a refund, then maybe I'll shop for ones verified as having the proper size or just be thankful for my DVD versions.

Want Ben-Hur / The Ten Commandments (2013) Discount?

What can I say. Both films have been remastered for High-definition and neither have ever looked better. The 'Ben Hur' was mastered from a 70mm print and in HD you can tell! 'Ten Commandments' was sourced from a VistaVision print. VistaVision was a system that used 35mm film sidewayslike a 35mm still camera and that gave a frame twice the size of regular vertically shot cinema film. Needless to say that it too looks spectacular in HD.

Save 25% Off