Cinematic Landmarks: Ben-Hur / Doctor Zhivago / Gone With The Wind

Collection of three classic epic film dramas. In ‘Ben Hur’ (1959) Charlton Heston stars in the title role as a Jewish prince who falls out with his close Roman friend (Stephen Boyd) when he refuses to promote Roman rule over his people. Hur plans and achieves revenge, but finds true peace when he joins the new following of Jesus Christ. In ‘Doctor Zhivago’ (1965), during World War I, Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) studies to become a doctor in Moscow. He marries his childhood sweetheart Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin), but is attracted to dressmaker’s daughter Lara (Julie Christie), herself engaged to young revolutionary Pasha (Tom Courtenay). Lara is also conducting an affair with government official Komarovsky (Rod Steiger). Yuri and Lara’s paths cross again in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution, and the two begin a passionate affair. Finally, ‘Gone With the Wind’ (1939) is a sprawling American Civil War saga wherein Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) uses men to get what she wants, but cannot get the one man she truly desires, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard). She soon meets her match in the roguish Captain Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) and in the war itself which destroys the genteel way of life she has always known.