Ben Hur

It's true that watching this, the first version of Lew Wallace's monumental tome is a bit like watching one of those 5-minute condensed versions of the entire Star Wars saga acted out by enthusiastic amateurs in their mum and dad's back garden, but complaining about how amateurish it all is seems a bit churlish to me.

Sidney Olcott, who like the rest of the film-making community, was still feeling his way back in 1907, would go on to better things, but it's clear that he still has no real idea of how to handle such a massive challenge. Panning shots and close-ups had already been found in films before 1907, but neither are to be found here, which is a shame because you get the feeling that the filmmakers here are trying to create a spectacle of sorts. Even then, they were starting to realise that audiences were growing more discerning and didn't want to see endless variations on the same theme every time they sat in front of a screen.

To give the filmmakers credit, the sets are quite extravagant for the time. It's not exactly clear what's going on a lot of the time, even with titles explaining each piece of action that is about to take place, but a lot of the cast seem to spend a lot of their time raising their arms. Sometimes you can tell they're doing it on cue because every arm goes up at the same time. The big chariot race is something of a let-down: the camera focuses on the crowd (about 12 of them) while every now and then we see the occasional chariot go flashing past. You've got to wonder whether Olcott watched this in his later years and rued the opportunity that he missed.

Incidentally, this film was the subject of a landmark legal case when the estate of the late Lew Wallace took Kalem Pictures, the makers of the film, to court for failing to get permission from the copyright holder to film the story. Kalem, I believe, claimed it was based on the stage play (which also boasted a live chariot race with the horses running on a treadmill), but to no avail...

Remember, folks, this mini-Hur was made well over a century ago. It would be nearly two decades before the excellent 1926 version was produced. Still, this was a worthy effort for the time. It's a rare glimpse of Hollywood moviemaking in its infancy---interestingly, there are scene-change titles, but no dialogue cards---and this 13-minute incarnation gave audiences a taste of the 1880 Lew Wallace novel. (It also spares us the presence of the oft-overrated Charlton Heston.) If only for its historical value, this is worth at least one watch for film buffs.

It's true that film makers were still feeling their way in the 1900s, but that's no excuse for a film to be boring now. Look at "Le voyage dans la lune" or "The Great Train Robbery", both of which came several years before Ben-Hur 1907. Even "Sherlock Holmes Baffled", a silly trick film from 1900, is still amusing.

The story is fragmented and would only make sense if you already knew it. (Which, to be fair, was likely at the time; Ben-Hur was as popular then as Harry Potter is now.) The chariot race is pathetic, being nothing more than the horses passing the camera several times until the movie ends. It would have been difficult to film an exciting chariot race within the limitations of the time, but this was not a good workaround. The only saving grace of this movie is that, like others of the time, it is short, barely ten minutes long.

Ben-Hur 1907 is proof that crappy cash-ins have been around even in the early days of cinema. We are fortunate it has survived, if only because that prevents any mystique from being attached to it, as has happened with films like "The Great Gatsby (1925)".

BEN HUR might seem an ambitious undertaking for the early days of the cinema but consider that by 1899 there had already been 2 filmed versions of H. Rider Haggard's SHE and 1 of Oscar Wilde's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. The early 1900's saw early attempts at A TALE OF TWO CITIES, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO and or course BEN HUR. The costumes are nice but I doubt the painted canvas backdrops convinced anyone even way back in 1906. The story is intact, as much as a single reel (12 minutes) will allow. In this version Hur does not get sent to the galleys; it is the chariot race which will decide if he is condemned as a criminal or not. Oh yes, even this early version has a chariot race and it is set up to be the highpoint of the picture. Alas, don't expect much in the way of special effects. This race has only two participants, Ben Hur and Massala, and they simply run their chariots around and around a camera which never moves. We all know how the story ends. The panorama, or "pan" shot was in use as early as 1896 when it was invented by an Venitian gondolier named Promio who put a camera in his boat to take a long shot of Venice as seen from the canal. The closeup was around in 1907 as evidenced by a short called MR. HURRY-UP OF NEW YORK but neither accomplishment is seen in this film. It's almost a certainty that audiences were easier to please then, at least they were for a little while, and for its time this version of BEN HUR did indeed offer more than the average one reel short. We are lucky that this version, and so many other early films survive to show us that filmmakers even back then were willing to take chances. At the time nobody knew that a fellow named D.W. Griffith was waiting in the wings gathering experience and developing some ideas of his own.

Ben Hur (1907)

** (out of 4)

The first version of the classic novel has a bit of history behind it but the actual film doesn't hold up. We get Herman Rottger playing Ben Hur, the man who becomes a slave and will eventually revolt and go up against Messala (William S. Hart). For starters, if anyone tries comparing this to the 1925 or 1959 versions then they're really cheating all three films. This is a 13-minute short so there's a lot to get crammed in here and of course the story is going to have to bounce around and not spend too much time on one plot point. With that said, the end result here is pretty disappointing because none of the apparent five directors knew how to build any real suspense or to make us care about anything we're seeing. We can never really get into the actual story and it's hard to care for any of the characters. Another problem is that the film really doesn't even appear to try and do anything overly special. We get some very impressive costumes but that's about it. This movie remains entertaining as a curio if you've seen what films would follow. On the historic side, this was the first film to end up in court due to copyright violations so I guess all authors has this film to thank for filmmakers not being able to take their work without credit.