By Steve Jones, USA TODAY
No filmmaker has ever done spectacle like Cecil B. DeMille and The Ten Commandmentswas his greatest spectacle of all. In celebration of the beloved film's 55th anniversary, Commandments is being released fully restored and, for the first time, in high definition (1956, Paramount, G, $15 for two-disc DVD; $25 for two-disc Blu-ray; $60 for six-disc DVD/Blu-ray gift set).
Paramount Home Entertainment
Let my people go!: It's almost Easter, which means it's time to sit down with the Cecil B. DeMille classic The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston.
Paramount Home Entertainment
Let my people go!: It's almost Easter, which means it's time to sit down with the Cecil B. DeMille classic The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston.
DeMille's final film, whose broadcast on ABC has been an Easter rite since 1973, remains a cinematic marvel both for its pre-computer-age special effects and its galaxy of Hollywood stars and acting that, if nothing else, was a match for the sheer extravagance of the production. Charlton Heston brought great gravitas to the role of Moses (also the voice of God), the would-be Pharaoh who upon discovering his true heritage would lead his people to freedom. He was matched in intensity by Yul Brenner as Ramses II, Moses' disdainful half-brother and nemesis. Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Sir Cedrick Hardwicke, Vincent Price, Yvonne De Carlo, Judith Anderson, Debra Paget and John Derek also star.
In dramatizing the biblical story of the Hebrews' Exodus out of Egypt (and slavery), DeMille said, "Our intention was not to create a story, but to be worthy of the divinely inspired story created more than 3,000 years ago."
To that end, he spent two years meticulously researching, consulting historians, eminent religious leaders and an array of ancient texts to make the story, set design and costumes as authentic as possible. Much of the 3-hour, 39-minute film was shot at sites in Egypt, including Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Commandments. The then-73-year-old director's attention to detail was so great and so hands-on that he nearly died of a heart attack after climbing a 100-foot-plus ladder to check a camera used to film the Exodus. DeMille, who would die of heart failure in 1959, ignored doctors' orders and returned to the set after a week to finish filming. When adjusted for inflation ($977 million in 2010 dollars), the epic is the U.S.'s fifth-highest-grossing film ever.
If The Ten Commandments were made today, special effects like the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of fire that delays Pharaoh's army, the plague mists that bring death to the first-born Egyptian sons and the lightning that inscribes the stone tablets would be created with computer-generated images. DeMille pulled it off and kept his methods secret for decades. He actually built a full-scale capital city in the desert and the "casts of thousands" featured more than 15,000 extras and just as many animals. When he says in his opening narration that viewers "will make a pilgrimage over the very ground that Moses trod," he means just that.
DeMille, whose more than 70 films include a 1923 black-and-white silent version of this story, favored the bombastic acting style of those pre-talkie movies, to which critics (who also question DeMille's liberties with historical fact and biblical writings) often point. There is plenty of hamminess in the 1956 version as royal edicts are thundered with the signature tagline, "So let it be written, so let it be done." Edward G. Robinson, who plays conniving Hebrew overseer and Moses skeptic Dathan, sounds pretty much like Edward G. Robinson the film mobster. Most often targeted for barbs is Anne Baxter as lovelorn throne princess Nefretiri, who swoons "Moses, Moses, Moses" every time the hero is in her presence.
The new Blu-ray and DVD sets come with tons of extras, and the gift set is a special effect unto itself. A clear slipcase depicts Moses standing arms spread; the storm-stirred Red Sea is on the box, which opens sideways. allowing the water to part and the Hebrews to walk through. The six discs (including both the 1923 and 1956 films and several features) are encased in replicas of the stone tablets inscribed in pre-Canaanite, the language experts believe they were written in. Also included: a hardcover book describing the making of the film, postcard-size costume sketches and a reproduction of Heston's handwritten letter inviting DeMille to the christening of Fraser Heston, who played the baby Moses discovered floating in the Nile.
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