Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

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Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, was disappointed with the chariot scene, as he felt it was too tame. He offered a prize of $100 (worth about 10 times that today) to the winner. This led to a much more competitive race that ended with a horrific crash that can be seen in the film. That crash, and another that resulted in a fatality, led to changes in rules of filming safety on film sets.
Clark Gable and then future wife Carole Lombard first met in late 1924 while working as extras on the set of this film. They would run into each other off and on again for the next year and a half (the two also appeared as extras in the epic The Johnstown Flood), but would not formally meet until 1931.
This film had an "extra" cast like no other. Many Hollywood stars showed up on set to watch the shooting and were pressed into service as extras, especially in the chariot race. In addition, many who would later become Hollywood's top stars, but who were at the time just struggling actors, were also in the crowd scenes as extras. Among well-known and soon-to-be-well-known names "working" in the film were John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Marion Davies, Myrna Loy, John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, Harold Lloyd, Carole Lombard, Janet Gaynor, Fay Wray, Mary Pickford, Colleen Moore, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Samuel Goldwyn and Rupert Julian.
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