Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, was disappointed with the chariot scene, as he felt it was too tame. He offered a prize of $100 (worth about 10 times that today) to the winner. This led to a much more competitive race that ended with a horrific crash that can be seen in the film. That crash, and another that resulted in a fatality, led to changes in rules of filming safety on film sets.
Clark Gable and then future wife Carole Lombard first met in late 1924 while working as extras on the set of this film. They would run into each other off and on again for the next year and a half (the two also appeared as extras in the epic The Johnstown Flood), but would not formally meet until 1931.
Ramon Novarro's weekly salary of $10,000 was 80 times more than what he earned while filming The Prisoner of Zenda - $125 per week - just three years previously.
Abraham L. Erlanger was the producer of a very successful stage production that had been running for 25 years. In 1922, two years after the play's last tour, the Goldwyn Company purchased the film rights, though Erlanger insisted on a generous profit participation deal and total approval over every detail of the production.
A staged fire on one of the ships got out of control. Armor-clad extras had to jump in the water. There is conflicting information as to whether any of them were killed.
According to The Guinness Book of World Records (2002), the movie contains the most edited scene in cinema history. Editor Lloyd Nosler compressed 200,000 feet (60,960 meters) of film into a mere 750 feet (228.6 meters) for the chariot race scene - a ratio of 267:1 (film shot to film shown).
Actor George Walsh, the original choice for Ben-Hur, agreed to take a $400 cut in salary, and was sent second-class on a ship to Italy, only to shoot one reel of film, a test with an unidentified Italian actor that was not intended for use in the finished film. He then heard, several months later, that he was being replaced with Ramon Novarro when co-star Francis X. Bushman told him he had read about it in the morning papers.
Advertised as "The Picture Every Christian Ought to See!"
After being brought to Italy, many of the lead actors were kept waiting around (on salary) for so long that Francis X. Bushman went on a 25-country tour with his sisters, and Carmel Myers went to Germany to film Garragan.
All the religious scenes are in Technicolor, but the chariot race is not - an intense amount of lighting was required to shoot Technicolor, making it extremely difficult.
Although the film grossed $9 million on its initial run, its huge cost overruns and the deal with rights-holder Abraham L. Erlanger meant that MGM was unable to make good on its initial $4-million investment.
At $3.9 million, the most expensive silent movie ever.
At one point during the Italian shoot, Francis X. Bushman was offered the job of directing the picture which he readily declined. He stated that he told the head office (MGM Culver City) to get the production back to Los Angeles or they would never get it completed. Bushman had been in Italy for the film from 1923-1925.
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda Sayre became friendly with many of the cast and crew while in Rome revising his book "The Great Gatsby". They attended a cast/crew dinner on Christmas Eve, honoring director Fred Niblo and his wife Enid Bennett. Zelda, among others, signed one of the dinner menus, which became the possession of Carmel Myers, who played Iras in the film. The menu is now in the archives of the University of South Carolina library.
Despite the fact that there is nudity in this film, it was passed by censors of that time because it dealt with Christianity, as it was originating.
During a European visit to move the production from Italy to the US, producer Louis B. Mayer stopped in Berlin, Germany, and attended a screening of Gösta Berlings saga. The production introduced him to the actress who would become one of the studio's most bankable stars a few years later: Greta Garbo.
Forty-eight cameras were used to film the sea battle, a record for a single scene.
Future stars Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Myrna Loy were uncredited extras in the chariot race scenes. Crawford and Loy also played slave girls.
Many of the scenes in this film, interestingly enough, were NOT remade in the more popular 1959 version of the story. Among these are the three Wise Men's journey through the desert, Mary and Joseph seeking refuge in the manger, and the scene in which Messala enlists the help of Iris to discover the identity of his chariot-racing opponent.