This March 20th, Fathoms in association with TCM will be showing The Ten Commandments at selected theaters around the country. The Ten Commandments, released 60 years ago this week, is one of the biggest Biblical epics the cinema has ever seen, maybe the biggest. It stars Charlton Heston as Moses in the kind of performance that defined Heston’s stoicism for the rest of his career. More importantly, it’s a movie done by the master showman of the movies himself, Cecil B. DeMille, and if anyone knew how to exploit the profane aspects of a Biblical story while paying only lip service to the sacred, it was DeMille. It’s not taken as seriously by a lot of people as his earlier efforts but that has never stopped me from announcing loudly and clearly that it’s my favorite DeMille by a mile. As far as I’m concerned, he finished on top.
DeMille began work on The Ten Commandments in 1953 and at that time it was already making a lot of buzz around Hollywood. The role of Nefretiri was considered the hottest property for an actress by 1954 and coming off of a Best Actress win for Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn was the front runner. Yes, Audrey Hepburn. Amazingly, she only didn’t get the part because DeMille found her figure too slender for the costumes. It sounds crazy that she was ever considered since the role seems custom tailored for an actress like Anne Baxter who had already shown her range in this kind of role with Eve in All About Eve. Nefretiri has an edge to her, one that Baxter could play easily but one that I have a hard time believing Hepburn could have ever pulled off.
The role of Moses is the kind of role associated with Charlton Heston but at the time Heston wasn’t associated with much of anything. He had become a minor adventure star with hits like Secret of the Incas and The Naked Jungle and, of course, that other DeMille picture he made, The Greatest Show on Earth. Apparently, it was Heston’s knowledge of Egypt’s history that impressed DeMille more than anything else. That and the fact that DeMille wanted his actors to use an older style of vocal delivery, more studied and formal, to emphasize the period nature, and Heston had that kind of delivery down cold his whole career. If you want stoic, Heston’s your man.
DeMille claimed that the movie was historically accurate but, of course, today we know better. For one thing, there weren’t any Jewish slaves building the pyramids, they were built by skilled laborers and craftsmen. For another, everyone playing all the major roles are white Europeans, not Egyptians. This was 1956 and that kind of thing happened regularly but now it makes the whole thing seem far less accurate than DeMille claimed it to be. The best way to look at The Ten Commandments is a story completely divorced from both reality and real history. Forget the characters ever got mentioned in any holy books and just watch it for what it is: A magnificent Hollywood spectacle.
When The Ten Commandments was released it quickly became the biggest box office draw anyone had seen in quite some time and it’s easy to see why. At close to four hours, it never lags and fills its running time with enough romance, intrigue, violence, and spectacle to satisfy even the most hardened of hearts. And that spectacle is still stunning in every way. The one Oscar The Ten Commandments received, among many nominations, was for its special effects and rarely have special effects been done better.
The special effects team was headed up by John P. Fulton who worked with Paul Lerpae (optical work and blue screen) and Farciot Edouart (rear projection). They handled the long shots of the building of Sethi’s city, elaborate miniatures optically printed against thousands of extras, the shots of the Exodus from Egypt, the pillar of fire, the creepy and menacing Angel of Death, and, of course, the biggest effect of them all, the parting of the Red Sea. That little effect took more than six months to film, combining the actual shoreline of the Red Sea with waterfall shots and hundreds of thousands of gallons of water projected in reverse as they poured into a massive studio tank. It still looks great. In fact, that’s the thing about the effects in The Ten Commandments: The effects don’t look good “for 1956.” They look good, period. Sure, you can see some of the optical bleeding but you could see it in the original Star Wars movies too and most people can pick out CGI without even thinking about it. And I’ve always been able to see miniatures but I enjoy knowing they’re miniatures and admiring the craft work. So when I look at the effects in The Ten Commandments, all I see is fantastic work.
And everything else, too. The performances by Vincent Price, Edward G. Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo, Anne Baxter, Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Nina Foch, Cedric Hardwicke, and Judith Anderson delight each time. The art direction and costumes are amazing. And frankly, of the movies nominated for Best Picture that year (Giant, Friendly Persuasion, The King and I, The Ten Commandments, and the winner, Around the World in 80 Days) my choice would be DeMille’s epic achievement. Giant would be a close second but I’d give the edge to the Big Ten. And I would have finally awarded DeMille a Best Director Oscar, something he never did get in competition. George Stevens won his second Oscar that year, for Giant, and he was a great director and did a great job but DeMille handled a cast of thousands, arduous location shooting, massive and long term set construction, months long work of special effects, and put it all together in a seamless three hour and forty minute epic that moves like a 90 minute thriller. That’s the best directing achievement of that year. So let it be written, so let it be done.
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