BEN-HUR

 Gore Vidal was an uncredited script collaborator on this biblical epic filmed on a scale even the Caesars could appreciate. The tale concerns two boyhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and Messala (Stephen Boyd), who become enemies at the time of Jesus. The beginning scenes of the movie show Messala in love with his childhood friend. Despite deletions of any homosexual references, the intense relationship between the two virile men says otherwise. In an interview, Vidal said that he proposed to director William Wyler “that the two had been adolescent lovers and now Messala has returned to Rome wanting to revive the love affair but Ben-Hur does not”. After Wyler agreed to this covert motivational ploy, Vidal informed Stephen Boyd (and pointedly not Heston), resulting in Boyd successfully playing off the role of a spurned lover, especially when he cries, “ Is there anything so sad as unrequited love?” Wyler once said, “The biggest mistake we made was the love story. If we had cut out that girl (Haya Harareet) and concentrated on the two guys, everything would have gone better’.

 “Ben-Hur is the ultimate Technicolor meditation on homoerotic, S&M and slave-master relationships … looking at it now, the film’s homoerotic subtext is the film’s most obvious draw” – L.A. Weekly

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