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. The movie is based on the 1880 novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace. Another silent movie on the same subject was made in 1925 and two sound movies on the same subject were made in 1959 and 2016.
| Ben Hur | |
|---|---|
_film..jpg) Scene of Judah Ben-Hur (right) discussing with his sister Rome's misrule of Jerusalem | |
| Directed by | Sidney Olcott Frank Oakes Rose[1] |
| Written by | Scenario by Gene Gauntier[2] |
| Based on | Lew Wallace's novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ |
| Produced by | Frank J. Marion George Kleine Samuel Long |
| Cinematography | Max Schneider[3] |
| Music by | Edgar Stillman Kelley (accompanying sheet music for film) |
Production companies | Kalem Company New York, N.Y. |
| Distributed by | Kalem Company |
Release date |
|
Running time | 15 minutes ("Approximate Length" 1000 feet)[4] |
| Country | United States |
| Languages | Silent (English intertitles) |
Actors
change- Herman Rottjer
- William S. Hart as Messala
- Gene Gauntier
- Harry T. Morey
References
change- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Ben Hur
