Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

smashtheelder 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)".

JoeytheBrit 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...

Boba_Fett1138 With a book consisting out of 558 and other movie versions that last well over two hours, the creators of this movie thought that they could put the entire story of Ben-Hur into a 15 minute silent short. No big surprise here that the end result is very muddled and story, directing and acting is pretty much non-existent in this movie.This movie version is known because it was the very first movie based on the 1880 Lew Wallace novel but its better known for being made without permission of the author's estate. This wasn't an uncommon thing by the way for its time and studios were constantly making movies based on novels without the proper permission of its copyright holders. As result of it, the author's estate successfully suit the studios for copyright infringement.Needless to say that this movie is a waste of one fine story. The one moment Ben-Hur is enslaved, 10 seconds later he's a free man again and 20 seconds later he's right in the middle of the chariot race. Of course the story doesn't ever flow and it you aren't really familiar with the Ben-Hur story, you'll have a hard time understanding what is going on in this movie.The movie mainly consists out of people raising their hands and walking around. The camera at all times remain at one position (yes even during the chariot race), making this movie looking very staged. It doesn't help much that the movie uses very limited sets and extra cast members. Basically its a group of, lets say, 20 people that are constantly on screen.Nevertheless the movie credits two actors for playing the two lead roles of Ben-Hur and Messala. This doesn't however mean that there is being acted in this movie though. A bit of a shame maybe, since the actor portraying Messala is William S. Hart, who was a real Shakespearean actor and later became one of the earliest and best known western actors in the late '10's and early '20's. He actually was a real life friend of legendary Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson and was one of the pallbearers at Wyatt Earp's funeral, along with other and bigger early western movie star in 1929. Well, let me say that this little piece of history is actually far more interesting than actually this movie.Hardly watchable for a movie, not even for historical sake.3/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Fred Sivyer I saw the first (1907) Ben Hur about 25 years ago in a film society back to back double feature with the Charlton Heston version. My memories are therefore fragmentary.The film should be called "Illustrated scenes from the life of Ben Hur" as it really doesn't try to tell the story in the time available. If you hadn't read the book you wouldn't know what was going on. One of my recollections is my wife nudging me and saying "there's the tile that's going to fall". Above the rather pathetic and bored looking extras (showing off their knees in Roman army costume) one roof tile was very different from the rest - it wasn't painted onto the set!! Sure enough, Ben Hur leaned rather obviously on this brick.The chariot race sticks in my mind too. A bunch of extras starts jumping up and down and two chariots race by the camera. The extras calm down and look bored for a while then start jumping up and down for the next rapid pass of two chariots. I can't remember how many times this was repeated, we were all laughing so hard that tears were running down my face.It is mercifully short, and interesting to compare with the 1925 big budget spectacular (also silent of course) which foreshadows the third version with amazing special effects.