Chariot Race! #9

The flags go down and the race begins. [To obtain the crowd shots, one special day was devoted to filming an actual race before some 10,000 costumed extras that included such prominent Hollywood celebrities as Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd, Lillian Gish, Marion Davies and John Gilbert. To coordinate the thousands of extras, thirty assistant directors were used. (One of these assistant directors was William Wyler, who would later direct the 1959 version of Ben-Hur.) Forty-two cameramen filmed the race as it was taking place. Stunt men drove ten of the chariots while stars Francis X. Bushman and Ramon Novarro drove their own. To ensure a real hell-for-leather, no-punches-pulled race, MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer offered a $100 bonus (a considerable sum back then) to the winner. By all accounts, the stunt men put on an astonishing display. During one spectacular pile-up, the crowd responded like the audience at the original Circus Maximus in Antioch! The production team later spent many additional weeks filming details of the race in the empty arena.]