#105 has so much going on - a Hollywood epic, produced by a star who felt slighted over losing the role of Ben Hur, directed by an influential director who was unable to retain final control, and thus disavowed the film, and written by a man who essentially broke the Blacklist of Hollywood in 1960 with this film, and his name finally credited as the screenwriter for the first time in 10 years.
Unfortunately I didn't get the Criterion version of this one - there's actually some decent blu-rays out with some decent restored footage - I don't think I got the better of the two blu-ray's and none of the commentary that is on the Criterion disk. A couple special features and deleted scenes are available, and some in fact was readded to the film, where Tony Curtis and Anthony Hopkins - (filling in for Lawrence Oliver who had passed) redubbed the audio.
Obviously this is typical of the big budget Hollywood pictures of the day, but the battle scenes are what stand out to me - especially the movement of formations - To take 4 or 5 minutes to show the Roman formations marching into place - the giant blocks of men organizing and reorganizing on the field is something you just don't normally see.
Anyhoo I hadn't seen it - a little long at 3 hrs even with an intermission but a piece of cinema history.
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