The Bible in film Christ with a climactic resurrection scene in color. "King of Kings" was re-released in 1931 with a synchronized musical score. MGM's 1925 silent-era "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ", starring Ramon Novarro was the most expensive film of its time. It included two spectacular scenes: the sea galley battle with pirates and the famous chariot-race. Another "swords and sandals" epic of the 1920s was "Noah's Ark" which combined title cards with spoken dialogue. The major studios produced fewer epics during the 1940s due in part to wartime scarcity of resources. After the war, some of Hollywood's highest grossing films were
Ramon Novarro men believed that a large sum of money was hidden in Novarro's house. The prosecution accused the brothers of torturing Novarro for several hours to force him to reveal where the non-existent money was hidden. They left the house with $20 they took from his bathrobe pocket. Novarro died as a result of asphyxiation, having choked to death on his own blood after being beaten. The two perpetrators were caught and sentenced to long prison terms, but released on probation in the mid-1970s. Both were later re-arrested for unrelated crimes for which they served longer prison terms than for the