In ‘Ben Hur’ Italians excluded from titles, the lawyer: “Heirs can claim right”

Behind the famous film that won 11 Oscars, ‘Ben Hur’, there was a pact between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (now controlled by Amazon Studios), Cinecittà and the Italian government in the figure of Giulio Andreotti then Minister of Finance : to use numerous Italian professionals in the film, but without mentioning their names in the opening and closing credits so that it would be an entirely American realization. A pact that essentially paid homage to the Americans but gave work to Italian families, involved by the thousands in the colossal: 30 thousand people between the construction of the scenes, the making of 32 thousand clothes, furnishings, cuirasses, spears and wooden swords with iron-like blades, stunt performers , gunsmiths, grooms and an army of various service workers; four months of work for 6500 extras, each paid 3,300 lire per day. To bring to light this new reconstruction is the journalist Michele Bovi who tells AdnKronos: “As Ferdinando Marra told me, at the time, between May 1958 and January 1959, a fifteen-year-old film lover, next to his father on the sets shooting, ‘Ben-Hur’ was an American colossal made above all by Italians, even if the titles appear almost exclusively the names of actors and experts from overseas. According to Ferdinando, in fact – underlines Bovi – the history and credits of the film that has consecrated Cinecittà as Hollywood on the Tiber should finally be rewritten with the names of our compatriots who have had the greatest merits: from Giulio Andreotti to Maurizio Lodi-Fé, from Prince Alessandro Tasca di Cutò to my father Pietro Marra “, the horse trainer which was headed by the stuntmen of Cinecittà, among the last witnesses of this film that in the credits ‘obscured’ also characters of the caliber of Mario Soldati and Sergio Leone, as well as Giulia no Gemma and Lando Buzzanca who in ‘Ben Hur’ had minimal roles, only to become the popular actors we know. But is it possible for the heirs to demand from Amazon Studios the rewriting of the opening and closing credits with the credits of the many Italians who were then blacked out? We asked the civil lawyer, expert in copyright, Italo Mastrolìa: “Even after many decades from a film production it is possible to claim the recognition of credits for some of the protagonists not mentioned in the film’s credits”, he immediately clarifies to Adnkronos. (continued) An answer that would open a new scenario for the film ‘Ben Hur’ (and for many others who at that time struck the same fate) that could return to shine once again, even managing to offer a novelty, after many years and after a large number of reruns, to see the rights due not only to Sergio Leone and Mario Soldati (then hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the second direction unit) but also, as Bovi recalls, to maestro Carlo Savina (who directed the orchestra for the soundtrack with interventions on the score signed by the Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa), to Vittorio and Elso Valentini (respectively s cenographer and decorator), to Don Dante Balboni (assistant to the Vatican Apostolic Library, called to prove the historical reliability of costumes and props), and to various actors present and dialoguing in various scenes. Actors such as Giuseppina ‘Josè’ Greci in the role of Maria, mother of Jesus, Stella Vitelleschi in the role of Amrah, Mino Doro in the role of Grato and many other well-known performers such as Aldo Silvani, Pietro Tordi, Aldo Pini, Diego Pozzetto, the two boxing champions who became actors Tiberio Mitri and Enzo Fiermonte, as well as to the aforementioned Giuliano Gemma and Lando Buzzanca who, despite the fleeting appearances, one as a centurion and the other as a slave, could give prestige to a proudly Italian ‘Ben-Hur’ too. Without forgetting the formidable stuntmen of Cinecittà: Otello Capanna nicknamed ‘the strongest man in Rome’, Alfredo Danesi, Sergio Casadei and Attilio Marra, brother of the trainer Pietro. led the lawyer Mastrolìa to go deeper: “The author and the co-authors (scriptwriters, writers of the original soundtrack and directors, ed) have the right to be indicated and recognized as creators of the work, and can claim in their paternity at any time (art. 20 law of 22 April 1941, n. 633, the so-called Law on copyright). Another faculty of this moral right – he stresses again – is to demand that one’s name appear on the copies of the ‘work with’ its professional quality and its contribution to the work. ‘It is called the right of mention’ in the screening of the cinematographic film ‘(art. 48 Lda) which is also up to the author of the scene handwriting, to the author of the dialogues, to the director of photography, to the translator of the dialogues “.” The right of mention, as an explanation of the right to paternity, is a moral right of the author and, like all other rights of the personality, is indispensable, inalienable and inalienable – argues the lawyer Mastrolìa – Moral rights outlive the author himself: the heirs, in fact, acquire the right to assert them in defense of the image and personality of the deceased. And in the absence of direct heirs, these rights are exercised by the State, through the Minister of Culture (art. 23 Lda) “. And the actors and professionals who collaborated in the production of the film? What rights do they have?” the performing artists who have supported the first parts in the work have the right to have their name indicated in the communication to the public and in the media containing the relative fixation (art.83 Lda) “, therefore in the DVDs, in the films, in the posters. But if the artists and, more generally, those called into question then signed a contract with the renunciation of the mention? “Should those clauses that possibly provide for the renunciation of the right to mention by the protagonists be considered ineffective and not protectable by Italian law. The current claim does not involve compensation in economic terms – clarifies the lawyer Mastrolìa – but the remedy of the mention in the credits and in all communications of the work “.” The burden of proving the validity of the claim – points out the lawyer – naturally weighs on the interested parties (or their heirs) who intend to exercise the moral copyright “. In short, the interested parties, if they wish, can come forward in spite of over 60 years and if they are able to prove their participation in the film thus obtaining the mention that they deserve, without however being able to hope for a cash relief, unless, observes the lawyer Mastrolìa, there is “an undue refusal” by the production company, in this case Amazon Studios. (by Veronica Marino)