the National Guard. Members of that local military unit were well known for their expertise in horsemanship. As a testament to their equine abilities, soldiers of Brooklyn's Third Battery in August 1908 would later set a world record for "military endurance" by riding 50 miles from Nanuet, New York to Brooklyn in just six hours, much of the time traveling at night and over mountain roads. Pain's Fireworks Company provided the chariots driven by Rottjer and the guardsmen, along with some other props and related gear. Release and reception Released on December 7, 1907, the film received positive reviews and comments in publications around the United States. The New York-based trade journal The Moving Picture World announced in its issue that day, "The Kalem Company this week put on the market the Roman spectacular subject, 'Ben Hur'." In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on February 16, 1908, the city's Gazette Times reported on the presentation of Ben Hur at a new local theater, a showing enhanced by actors on site who performed sound effects and spoke dialog generally synchronized with the footage projected on screen: The Moving Picture World in February 1908 also updated its readers on audience reactions to Kalem's release. "'Ben Hur'", reported the trade journal, "drew such crowds to a theater in Atlanta, Ga., that the police had to aid in clearing the aisles and lobby." Later in the month the film-industry publication added, "A Western newspaper in commenting on a local show refers to 'Ben Hur' as 'a wonderfully realistic and pleasing presentation of Lew Wallace's famous story and a triumph of the kinetoscopic art.'" Copyright infringement In addition to being the first screen adaptation of Lew Wallace's novel, the production is noteworthy in film history as well for establishing precedent in copyright law in the United States. The motion picture was released nearly three years after Wallace's death, but it was produced by Kalem without the permission of the author's estate. Former Kalem screenwriter Gauntier remarked in her previously cited 1928 autobiography that in the early silent era it was a common practice for studios to ignore copyrights and dismiss any proprietary rights of original authors or creators of intellectual properties. On March 20, 1908–14 weeks after the release of Ben Hur—the publishing house Harper & Brothers, stage producers Klaw and Erlanger, and the author's estate filed a joint copyright-infringement lawsuit against the Kalem Company as well as