Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
Interestingly there was no religious component whatsoever to the original (and unauthorized) version of the film. It was a short and straightforward adventure film.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bfisher
Why there would have been a question about authorization if Wallace died in 1905 and the film was made in 1957?
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The 1957 film was the second
remake — it had been brought to the screen twice before. The first (unauthorized) version was in 1907. It was a one-reeler made on the cheap. The owners of the copyrights to Ben Hur sued, won a hefty settlement, and the case proved pivotal in ensuring that companies must secure film rights before filming an author's works. The second version was a big budget film put out by MGM in 1925 and it was quite a spectacle. The film used all kinds of film techniques that were state of the art at the time including miniaturization and false backdrops to provide the film's special effects.