Year: 1907
Director: Harry T. Morey
Country: US
Language: N/A
Based on an 1880 novel by Lew Wallace, which was inspired by events in the bible, Ben Hur was first put to screen in 1907, then remade in 1925 (a masterful silent epic), 1959 (an award winning talkie epic) and 2016 (a forgettable piece of crap). This Ben Hur was an unauthorized silent short version that resulted in the producers being successfully sued for copyright infringement.
In some short scenes, we see Jesus Christ as a Jew who is prepared to wage war on Rome after his family is betrayed. It ends in a chariot race.
By this time in film history, Cinema was just starting to be seen as serious business. Previously it had been viewed as a short-term novelty, a sideshow attraction if you will. Ben Hur's production was loosely defined however, unlike the epics that would come in the late 1910's this didn't have much of a narrative nor did it have great cinematography as the camera was fixed to one position throughout its run-time.
With a $500 budget, which was a decent sum for its time, it's unfortunate that the producers didn't get much out of this film. Hopefully the Director went on to make decent profit, because the court ordered him to pay the original authors $25,000! We could make a claim that the story is poor because of the time, but George Melies was making marvelous works of art at the time.
This version of Ben Hur is largely forgotten by silent fanatics and I can see why. This doesn't hold a candle to the 1925 horse-killing juggernaut by Demille.
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