In 1971, when CBS broadcast the 1959 film “Ben-Hur” on television for the first time, more than 85 million people tuned in to view this Hollywood spectacular of friendship, betrayal, revenge, redemption and – of course – a thrilling chariot race.
One of the most-watched movies on TV in that era, the blockbuster film directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins and Stephen Boyd remains a popular Easter viewing tradition for many people.
Two silent “Ben-Hur” films were produced in 1907 and 1925.
The first one spawned a major lawsuit on intellectual property rights that went all the way to the Supreme Court, leaving a legacy that still affects the movie industry today.
Two years after Wallace’s death in 1905, the nascent film industry took aim at “Ben-Hur.” Based in New York City, Kalem Company began production without permission of a silent film by the same name featuring many of the ideas in the book, including the chariot race.
The movie studio filmed that scene at Sheepshead Bay Race Track using off-duty soldiers of the 3rd Battery in Brooklyn in costumes supplied by the Metropolitan Opera House, as well as horses from the New York National Guard artillery unit.
The single-reel, 15-minute silent film premiered in theaters in December 1907.
“Kalem failed to acquire motion picture rights to Ben Hur,” early film historian Terry Ramsaye wrote about the case in his classic 1925 book “A Million and One Nights: A History of the Motion Picture,” “Largely for the rather simple reason that motion picture rights were unknown.”
The movie studio quickly appealed the decision, arguing the film was an exhibition of photographs, which was not specifically mentioned in existing copyright legislation.
The defending attorney argued Kalem had not broken any laws because the movie studio had produced an entirely different form of artistic interpretation, since the images in the film constituted a new medium not covered by existing regulations.
“The defendant not only expected but invoked by advertisement the use of its films for dramatic reproduction of the story,” he wrote.
MPPC paid a $25,000 fine, which made “Ben Hur” the most expensive film ever made at the time.
The court ruled that the movie be destroyed.
The “Ben-Hur” saga would surface again in film with another silent treatment in 1925.
The Wallace family had sold the film rights to Erlanger for $600,000; Erlanger then offered them to Samuel Goldwyn in 1922 for a reported $1 million plus half the gross, making this version of the film the costliest ever made in the silent era.