Though he directed at least 80 films he is, perhaps unfairly, best known for his Biblical epics, Samson and Delilah , Sign of the Cross , King of Kings, and two versions of The Ten Commandments. The story of the two McTavish brothers, one a poor carpenter, the other a rich contractor, and the construction of a church with substandard concrete, the collapse of which spoiler alert kills their poor grey haired mother, was heavy handed allegory and awkward storytelling.
When DeMille undertook to remake the film in the early s his own fame was long established. Allegory was jettisoned in favor of a mostly literal retelling of the Exodus story.
The newly developed VistaVision technique, which exposed a 35mm negative sideways, produced a widescreen experience in finely detailed and lush Technicolor. One way that DeMille strove for epic dimensions was through historical accuracy, which also became a canny marketing point. Noerdlinger even produced a book, Moses and Egypt , which detailed the Biblical translations, Egyptian sources, and other materials behind the film, down to analyses of the thread counts in ancient Egyptian linen.
But this provides an ironic sort of authenticity; an elite ancient Egyptian vision is translated into a dynamic expression where the king and his minions are the bad guys. An epic product a posterior numbing 3 hours and 40 minutes worth also required an epic scale of production.
The widescreen format provides a scale rarely seen today, a fitting tableau for the enormous sets and masses of extras. The location sets in Egypt were the largest ever built. One of the two water tanks built on the Paramount back lot for the Red Sea was reportedly feet on each side. The matte paintings that created background landscapes, pyramids, and mountains, were the pinnacle of the art, as were the incredibly complicated optical compositing techniques, which used up to 12 separate negatives to create the final image.
These techniques create an artistic feeling that connects the film to classic paintings. But to a 21st century eye accustomed to computer animation, they feel static. The Egyptian sets are magnificent, enormous, glossy and detailed, populated by hundreds of costumed extras.
The score by Elmer Bernstein, soaring and heroic, also raises the film up but sets it as a mid-century production. On this we may pine for modern special effects. He is slow to be provoked, but then, watch out. As for the love triangle between Moses, Nefretiri and Rameses, that doesn't appear in scriptures or history. Bad luck, Josephus and Philo: DeMille also filled the gaps in Moses's life from a stack of imaginative pulp novels.
It's amazing how much the fashions of New Kingdom Egypt seem to resemble those of DeMille can just about be forgiven the makeup, because ancient Egyptians did indeed paint their eyelids, lips and nails, but he is pushing it by dressing dancing girls in fluorescent green bikinis.
At least the spectacular scenes filmed on location in Egypt and Sinai, with thousands of extras, lend the whole thing a sense of authenticity. The film won its only Oscar for rising to the special-effects challenges of religious, rather than historical, imagery — most famously the pillar of fire and the parting of the Red Sea.
But there's disappointment in store when Rameses refuses to listen to Moses's plea to let his people go, and Egypt is visited by … four plagues. The other six are only mentioned in passing, because DeMille couldn't work out how to do frogs, flies, lice, boils, locusts or the death of livestock. Moses : The man stupid enough to use you as a footstool would not be wise enough to rule Egypt. Sign In. Play trailer Adventure Drama. Director Cecil B. Ingraham this work contains material from the book "Pillar of Fire" A.
Southon this work contains material from the book "On Eagle's Wing". Top credits Director Cecil B. See more at IMDbPro. Trailer The Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments Photos Top cast Edit. Charlton Heston Moses as Moses. Yul Brynner Rameses as Rameses. Anne Baxter Nefretiri as Nefretiri. Edward G. Robinson Dathan as Dathan. Yvonne De Carlo Sephora as Sephora. Debra Paget Lilia as Lilia. John Derek Joshua as Joshua. According to Charlton Heston , Cecil B. DeMille changed the name of Moses' wife from Zipporah the original Hebrew spelling to Sephora the Greek spelling to make it easier to pronounce.
On the set of the film Heston told a reporter, "It is difficult today to make love to a woman called Zipporah. You must be careful not to make modern audiences laugh at a name. DeMille movie. Wassell In their autobiographies, both said that they didn't mind the small salary they were paid for their work on this movie.
All they wanted was the privilege to play a role in a DeMille movie. This movie is usually edited very slightly for television. Because of numerous lengthy commercial breaks, most showings clock in at close to four hours and thirty minutes. The DVD release is three hours and thirty-nine minutes on two discs, leading some humorists to comment that it had been "trimmed to seven commandments".
There is a longstanding rumor that future Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was an extra in this movie, possibly playing an Egyptian soldier. In her book "My Lucky Stars", Shirley MacLaine recalls asking Castro if he indeed was in this movie, and she received an ambiguous answer.
As a promotion for this movie, Paramount Pictures' publicity department gave grants to state and local governments to post stone tablets of the Ten Commandments on public land. Many years later, the American Civil Liberties Union sued to have some of these removed on the grounds that placing the Ten Commandments on public property was "an establishment of religion" that violated the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The scene in which the slaves are working in the brick pits under a sweltering sun was filmed on an ice-cold soundstage, so the mud did not dry under the studio lights. The scantily clad actors were actually freezing during filming, and had to be covered with oil to simulate sweat.
Adjusted for inflation, it is the most financially successful Biblical movie. Yvonne De Carlo died in All three lived to the age of eighty-four. Mannix star Mike Connors was one of the Amalekites who attacked Jethro's daughters at the well.
He was billed as "Touch Connors". But this movie won DeMille many special awards, not only from the movie industry, but also from Christian and Jewish organizations.
Bernstein later said, "I would say that the work on The Ten Commandments was singularly the most exciting project of my entire life. In this movie's three hour and thirty-nine-minute runtime, the Ten Commandments are neither mentioned nor shown until the last twenty minutes of the movie.
In her autobiography "Intermission: A True Story", Anne Baxter wrote that she wore a "skin-dyed bra" and a "skin-dyed G-string" underneath the most revealing of her costumes. She also said that her first scene with Charlton Heston was the one where Nefretiri kneels beside Moses and embraces him. Her enamelled Egyptian collars were warmed before they were placed on her so she wouldn't get goosebumps. She brought her five-year-old daughter Katrina Hodiak to see the filming of the scene in which Nefretiri convinces Sephora to leave to Midian.
One of the few times she heard DeMille laugh was when a female extra in the Ethiopian tribute scene was caught mumbling in the far end of the set and, after DeMille suggested she share her "Earth-shaking remarks", the extra explained: "I was saying, I wonder when the old SOB is going to call lunch?
While Edith Head 's revealing costume designs were scandalous by standards, they would have been seen as exceedingly chaste by Ancient Egyptian standards, as Egyptians generally wore as little as possible due to the climate. Charlton Heston said that he had nine different beards throughout filming.
The expression "the son of your body" for a biological offspring is based on inscriptions found in Mehu's tomb. Gloria Swanson was originally cast as Memnet, but she left because she was having trouble getting a backer for a musical stage version of "Sunset Blvd. The original ten-minute theatrical trailer included alternate takes and shots that were cut from this movie. This movie is set in the thirteenth century B. This was Cecil B. DeMille 's only movie made in widescreen.
In , when The Greatest Show on Earth was released, all movies, except for This Is Cinerama , were made in the old non-widescreen Academy Standard ratio of 1. Four years later, widescreen movies had become standard. Some scenes were filmed in Egypt in Relations between the United States and Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser did not become fraught until the following year, when Egypt formally recognized China's claim to Taiwan and began importing Soviet weapons via Czechoslovakia.
Despite being credited as costume designers, John L. Jensen and Arnold Friberg did not work primarily in costume design. Jensen was the lead sketch artist, and sketched out designs for certain costumes. Friberg was primarily hired to design this movie's titles, which were hand lettered and photographed over a colored leather background.
Friberg also contributed costume sketches. The costume for Moses as a shepherd was patterned after one Friberg had already painted, a portrayal of an ancient prophet for "The Childrens' Friend", a magazine published by the Primary Association, the children's organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which Friberg is a member. According to Simon Louvish 's biography "Cecil B. Boyd declined the role due to his commitment to his enormously popular television series Hopalong Cassidy DeMille was persuaded to hire Charlton Heston after the Israeli government gave him a statuette likeness of Moses, and noted Heston's resemblance to the statuette.
DeMille released The Ten Commandments The golden fabric Vincent Price describes was likely sea silk. It is woven from the filaments byssi of a bivalve mollusc found in the Mediterranean. When treated with lemon juice, it turns golden and color and does not fade. The fabric produced is a finer weave than silk and was considered extremely valuable and rare.
Pre-production work included over 1, storyboard sketches. This movie contains one of the earliest Hollywood depictions of interracial romance without a white actor in blackface. A romantic relationship between Moses Charlton Heston and Princess Tharbis Esther Brown is implied when she looks seductively at Moses and says that he "is kind as well as wise.
In his book Antiquities of the Jews, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus calls her "Tharbis" and tells a story about how Moses conquered Ethiopia with the help of the princess. The Hebrew written on the stones is actually the Tetragrammaton in ancient Paleo Hebrew letters. According to modern-day archaeologists, the English translation would be "Yahweh". Lulua has a line that was deleted from this movie: "They will have crow's-feet by the time it's my turn to marry.
I'm the youngest. Special effects property master William Sapp created the effects that turned the waters of the Nile red. Red dye was pumped into the water through a hose at the point where Aaron touched the river with his staff. Sapp also created the vessel that Rameses II's Priest used in an attempt to restore the waters. The vessel had two chambers: one filled with clear water, located near the vessel's opening, and one filled with red-dyed water, located near the bottom.
As the vessel was tipped to empty its contents, the clear water poured out first, then the red-dyed water. Six vessels were made for this movie, but only two were used during production.
The reverse shot showing the red water extending out into the sea was created through animation onto shots of the Red Sea that had been photographed in Egypt.
DeMille had already signed Cornel Wilde for the role of Joshua, and reluctantly had to go back on his word and give the part to Derek. This movie featured an international cast with foreign-born leading and supporting actors and actresses from the following countries: Russia Yul Brynner , Romania Edward G.
Prints of this film contained a unique mark that appeared in the upper-right corner twice at the start of each reel, shaped like a capital "F" but with three bars, two facing right and one facing left.
As widescreen was in its infancy and screen sizes varied greatly, this was a guide for projectionists telling them where to position the top line of the frame when projecting in 1.
In the original Book of Exodus, Moses had a stutter and because of this, he often left to Aaron to make the miracles. Charlton Heston tried to do a convincing stutter, but it didn't work. Heston then opted for speaking paused and more slowly than the rest of the characters. DeMille chose Jayne Meadows , but she declined the role because she wanted to spend more time with her family. DeMille originally planned to use matte effects with real fire, but Paramount Pictures' premiere date for this movie forced the technicians to use animation.
The swirling white sparks that appear before and after the Pillar of Fire were accomplished by burning magnesium and filming it in slow motion.
A rare epic of its time in that its interior scenes were all shot on Hollywood soundstages. DeMille 's last movie. Despite his fame and success for numerous Biblical spectacular movies, he won his only competitive Oscar for producing The Greatest Show on Earth He also won an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in She was six years younger than Carradine, six years older than Deering, and eleven years older than Heston.
Flora Robson was considered for Memnet, and Bette Davis was interviewed. They were watching the movie and, in the scene with the 10th Plague, killing of the first born, bassist Cliff Burton said, "Whoa, it's like creeping death! Special effects man William Sapp was not involved with creating the burning bush, which was handled by John P. Sapp was critical of the result, pointing out that it was not a "burning" bush at all, but a glowing one.
He claimed that if he'd he crafted the bush, it would've burned on-camera.
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