There’s a funny quote by screenwriter, playwright and novelist Gore Vidal that’s included in many books of quotations: “I’m all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.”
An even more famous quotation that may have been written by Vidal also has something to do with whipping.
It comes from the epic film, Ben-Hur, which had its world premiere in New York exactly fifty years ago today, on November 18, 1959.
I said may have been written by Vidal because there is some dispute about who wrote what in the final script for Ben-Hur.
Official credit was given to veteran screenwriter Karl Tunberg. However, at the request of the film’s director, William Wyler, several other writers did some extensive but uncredited rewriting on the script, including Vidal and the famous playwrights Maxwell Anderson and Christopher Fry.
If you’ve seen the movie, you probably know the quotation from Ben-Hur that is most often cited by movie buffs and quote books.
It’s in a scene in the galley of a Roman warship, where barechested Charlton Heston is chained with dozens of other sweating, near-naked slaves who row the ship.
The Roman naval commander, played by British actor Jack Hawkins, comes down into the galley to inspect the slaves.
He asks Heston, who he calls by his seat number – Forty-one – how long he’s been a galley slave. Heston answers in a grumpy tone that annoys Hawkins. So, Hawkins lashes him on the back with the multi-stranded whip he’s carrying.
Heston rears up and glares menacingly at Hawkins, with gritted teeth, but says nothing. Hawkins looks down at him and remarks: “You have the spirit to fight back, but the good sense to control it.”
Then Hawkins says:
“Your eyes are full of hate, Forty-one. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive.”
It’s not certain that Gore Vidal was the writer who contributed those famous lines to the script. It could have been Tunberg, Anderson or Fry.
But given Vidal’s sexual preference (he came out of the closet long before it was fashionable), and given his oft-quoted quip about mutual birch lashings by consenting adults, something tells me Gore would have a special flair for writing a scene that included sweaty, near-naked men and a whipping.
