It is much more than mere spectacle. It is a picture that has warmth and romance, excitement, drama, tragedy, humor and inspiration blended into one absorbing drama.

MGM has delivered the Ben-Hur it promised. It is, whatever the minor pros and cons that will rage over it, magnificent, inspiring, awesome, enthralling and all the other adjectives you have been reading about it.

This is a Ben-Hur to stir the imagination and move the heart. It has spectacle, of course. But it is spectacle which, exciting beyond words in the stunningly handled chariot race, does not overwhelm the basic truths of Wallace's story of faith.

The last gasp of a dying Hollywood, Ben-Hur doesn't have the substance to fill its epic size.