chariot race with a smaller lens with a much shorter minimum focal length. He also decided that the car should stay only a few feet ahead of the horses. This was highly dangerous, for if the car did not make its turns or slowed down, a deadly crash with the horses could occur. The changes, however, solved the problems the camera crew was encountering. As filming progressed, vast amounts of footage were shot for this sequence. The ratio of footage shot to footage used was 263:1, one of the highest ratios ever for a film. John Dunning and Ralph E. Winters edited the footage of the chariot sequence. According to Dunning, Winters edited most of the chariot race but the two men discussed it at length with some input from Wyler. The two editors decided that, once the race was under way, one of the charioteers should be killed immediately to demonstrate to the audience that the race was a deadly one. Inserts of the barbs on the hub of Messala's chariot were inserted repeatedly throughout the sequence to make it obvious that his chariot was highly dangerous. As footage was shot, it was roughly edited by Ralph Winters. If the footage was poor, the stunts didn't come off on camera well, or coverage was lacking, then more footage would be shot. At the end of three months, Dunning says, Winters had so much footage on hand that he asked Dunning to come to Rome to help him edit together the final sequence. One of the most notable moments in the race came from a near-fatal accident. Joe Canutt, Yakima Canutt's son, did Heston's more dangerous stunts during the sequence. When Judah Ben-Hur's chariot jumps over the wreckage of a chariot in its path, Ben-Hur is almost thrown out of his chariot. He hangs on and climbs back aboard to continue the race. While the jump was planned (the horses were trained to leap over the wreckage, and a telephone pole had been half-buried in the earth to force the chariot to jump into the air), stunt man Joe Canutt was tossed into the air by accident; he incurred a minor chin injury. Marton wanted to keep the shot, but Zimbalist felt the footage was unusable. Marton conceived the idea of showing that Ben-Hur was able to land on and cling to the front of his chariot, then scramble back