In a Hot Blog entry posted this morning at 11 ayem, David Poland wrote that “the Ben-Hur that won the 1959 Oscar for Best Picture was not, in any opinion I know of, a remake of the previous movie, but a film based on the same source material.” Not really — William Wyler‘s late ’50s version adhered to same basic story bones as Fred Niblo‘s 1925 version, both being based on the General Lew Wallace novel — same Messala, same chariot race, same leprosy, oar-slave imprisonment sentence, etc.

“On the other hand,” Poland continues, “The Ten Commandments, remade by Cecil B. DeMille 33 years after he did the same story in some 2-Strip Technicolor and no sound, was a remake√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ǭ¶nominated and not winning the Oscar in 1957, losing to Around The World In 80 Days.” Bullshit again. DeMille’s 1923 version was half about the story of Moses and half a modern-day parable set in San Francisco about two brothers who are rivals for the same woman, etc., while the ’56 version was all Moses, all the time.