Production of Ben-Hur (1959 film) 10 to 12 pages of it. Shooting lasted for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. On Sundays, Wyler would meet with Fry and Zimbalist for story conferences. The pace of the film was so grueling that a doctor was brought onto the set to give a vitamin B complex injection to anyone who requested it (shots which Wyler and his family later suspected may have contained amphetamines). Wyler was unhappy with Heston's performances, feeling they did not make Judah Ben-Hur a plausible character. Wyler shot 16 takes of Heston saying, "I'm a Jew!" By November 1958,
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ the left, he caught Messala’s wheel with the iron-shod point of his axle, and crushed it". By the time of "Ben-Hur"'s publication in 1880, Wallace had already published his first novel, "The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins" (1873), and "Commodus: An Historical Play" (1876) that was never produced. He went on to publish several more novels and biographies, including "The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell" (1893), a biography of President Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and "The Wooing of Malkatoon" (1898), but "Ben-Hur" remained his most significant work and best-known novel. "Humanities" editor Amy Lifson named