Kalem had to pay Harper a hefty $25,000, according to Kevin Brownlow’s history of silent film, The Parade’s Gone By. Films weren’t taken particularly seriously at the time, but the justices said that the film’s advertisement had relied on the book’s success and its makers were wrong to have hitched a ride on Wallace’s coattails. The result, a landmark 1911 ruling, created contemporary copyright standards when the justices said that film-makers needed permission to adapt works under copyright. The company sued the film-makers, who had simply shot their favorite scenes from the book.īox office records for the film weren’t available, but the film’s success made an impression: the resulting infringement suit went to the supreme court.

Wallace had died two years before the film’s release, but his publisher, Harper & Brothers, still held the rights to the book. Production budget: $500, adjusted to $12,851 in 2016Įventual court settlement: $25,000, adjusted to $642,589 in 2016Īt 15 minutes long, the film is certainly the shortest adaptation of the novel’s hundreds of pages in terms of film history, though, it might be even more significant than the 1959 classic because it created the concept of movie rights.Īn elaborate play version had been a success in 1899, possibly because the spectacle had included horses on treadmills and the producing Kalem Company worked hard to replicate it, even featuring actors from the 1890 cast of the play.

Photograph: Strobridge Lithography Company: Cincinnati and New York/Wikimedia commons Ben Hur (1907) Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.Ben-Hur on Broadway. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881-85). Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878-81) and served as U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy.

He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his 1880 historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Lewis Wallace (ApFebruary 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana.

Leo wallace ben hur