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the scenario. Charles Brabin was selected as director, George Walsh was picked to play Ben-Hur, and the company had been sent abroad to shoot the picture in mammoth sets constructed in Rome and in various scenic places in Italy. It had been in the works for almost three months when the merger occurred, by which time it was fairly obvious that it was going to be a headache, king-size.
Press stories sent back from the Eternal City were couched in superlatives, but private reports indicated that Miss Mathis and Brabin were in a jam. The immensity of the historical drama and the problems of staging its numerous spectacle scenes had made for delays and misadventures. Walsh was frequently sick. Brabin seemed stumped by the awesome prospect of directing the World's Greatest Film. Marcus Loew was soon sending instructions to his management team on the Coast to select a set of key replacements and have them ready to go to Italy.
This had to be done in strictest secret, for the contract on the screen rights specified that Miss Mathis was to be in control of the picture and the director must be approved by Abe Erlanger, the theatrical producer who headed the syndicate. Mayer and Thalberg assembled their people with the stealth of conspirators, barely letting them know what they were in for before shipping them on to New York.
They picked Fred Niblo as director, young Ramon Novarro to play Ben-Hur, and Bess Meredyth, an experienced screen writer, to revise the scenario. It was notable that all three were veterans of Mayer's Mission Road studio. They were sent to Europe with Marcus Loew in July.
Mayer didn't make that journey. He went only as far as New York and there consigned the community interests of the "Mayer group" to Robert Rubin, who did go abroad with the group. There was too much demanding attention in Culver City that summer for Mayer or Thalberg to go to Europe to tackle a problem as knotty as Ben-Hur.
With diplomatic talking Loew did the delicate job of get