This 1929 version of the biblical epic (the famous 1959 version of which was shown by TCM Monday night) is presented this evening, and it’s a really fascinating compare-and-contrast exercise. You’d think, for example, there would be no way that a silent movie could capture the kinetic excitement of the chariot race as grandly as the later film – but you’d be wrong. Plenty of animals, and humans, I suspect, were harmed in the making of this picture.