Ben Hur (1907 movie)

1907 American short film directed by Sidney Olcott

Ben Hur is a 1907 American silent drama movie directed by Sidney Olcott and Frank Oakes Rose[5] and stars Herman Rottjer, William S. Hart, and Gene Gauntier.

Ben Hur
Scene of Judah Ben-Hur (right) discussing with his sister Rome's misrule of Jerusalem
Directed bySidney Olcott
Frank Oakes Rose[1]
Written byScenario by
Gene Gauntier[2]
Based onLew Wallace's novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Produced byFrank J. Marion
George Kleine
Samuel Long
CinematographyMax Schneider[3]
Music byEdgar Stillman Kelley (accompanying sheet music for film)
Production
companies
Kalem Company
New York, N.Y.
Distributed byKalem Company
Release date
  • December 7, 1907 (1907-12-07)
Running time
15 minutes ("Approximate Length" 1000 feet)[4]
CountryUnited States
LanguagesSilent
(English intertitles)

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  1. Chow-Kambitsch, Emily (2017). "An Alternative 'Roman Spectacle': Fragmentation, Invocations of Theatre, and Audience Engagement Strategy in Kalem's 1907 Ben-Hur", May 30, 2017, Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, SAGE Publishing; subscription access through The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library. According to period sources, Rose was not a film director; he was in 1907 the general stage manager for Pain's Fireworks Company in Brooklyn.
  2. Tracy, Tony. "Outside the System: Gene Gauntier and the Consolidation of Early American Cinema", Film History, vol. 28, no. 1 (2016), p. 75. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016.
  3. Gauntier, Gene (1928). "Blazing the Trail", edited by Gertrude B. Lane, Woman's Home Companion (Springfield, Ohio), October 1928, p. 186; pdf copy in the Women Film Pioneers Project, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
  4. Kawin, Bruce F. How Movies Work. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1987, pp. 46-47. According to this reference, a full 1000-foot reel of film in the silent era had a maximum running time of 15-16 minutes. Silent films were generally projected at a "standard" speed of 16 frames per second, far slower than the 24 frames of later sound films. Also, most reels, especially the final reels in multiple-reel releases, were not filled to their maximum capacities.
  5. Ben Hur

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