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The Ten Commandments Overview:

The Ten Commandments (1956) was a Adventure - Drama Film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and produced by Cecil B. DeMille and Henry Wilcoxon.

SYNOPSIS

For DeMille's last picture, Hollywood's undisputed master of the cast-of-thousands epic pulled out all the stops, topping even his 1923 silent telling of the Exodus story. Heston, in a role that became his signature, gives a highly charged performance as Moses, the Hebrew who became an Egyptian prince and then led his people out of slavery, and there isn't a false note in the production. The parting of the Red Sea, an effect that manages to remain glorious even in our age of computer graphics, was accomplished by massive amounts of water being poured into a tank and then reversed (the effects took the Oscar). The 35th anniversary video edition features an uncut 245-minute version, with Dolby stereo sound and an on-screen introduction by DeMille. The collector's edition includes a signed card from Heston.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

The Ten Commandments was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1999.

Academy Awards 1956 --- Ceremony Number 29 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Art DirectionArt Direction: Hal Pereira, Walter H. Tyler, Albert Nozaki; Set Decoration: Samuel M. Comer, Ray Nominated
Best CinematographyLoyal GriggsNominated
Best Costume DesignEdith Head, Ralph Jester, John Jensen, Dorothy Jeakins, Arnold FribergNominated
Best Film EditingAnne BauchensNominated
Best PictureCecil B. DeMille, ProducerNominated
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The Ten Commandments BlogHub Articles:

The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)

By Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop Button

While Yul Brynner easily gives the best performance in Ten Commandments, until the second half of the movie Anne Baxter gives the most amusing one. She's an Egyptian princess and she's going to marry the next pharaoh. The next pharaoh is either Brynner or Charlton Heston. Cedric Hardwicke ... Read full article

The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)

By Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop Button

While Yul Brynner easily gives the best performance in Ten Commandments, until the second half of the movie Anne Baxter gives the most amusing one. She's an Egyptian princess and she's going to marry the next pharaoh. The next pharaoh is either Brynner or Charlton Heston. Cedric Hardwicke ... Read full article

The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)

on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop Button

While Yul Brynner easily gives the best performance in Ten Commandments, until the second half of the movie Anne Baxter gives the most amusing one. She's an Egyptian princess and she's going to marry the next pharaoh. The next pharaoh is either Brynner or Charlton Heston. Cedric Hardwicke ... Read full article

The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)

on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop Button

While Yul Brynner easily gives the best performance in Ten Commandments, until the second half of the movie Anne Baxter gives the most amusing one. She's an Egyptian princess and she's going to marry the next pharaoh. The next pharaoh is either Brynner or Charlton Heston. Cedric Hardwicke ... Read full article

On the Set of The Ten Commandments ( 1956 )

By The Metzinger Sisters on Mar 31, 2018 From Silver Scenes - A Blog for Classic Film Lovers

Tonight, as part of television tradition, ABC will be airing The Ten Commandments in honor of Passover week. For those who are unfamiliar with the film ( were you wandering in the desert wilderness with Moses? ), this 4-hour production tells the story from the Old Testament of Moses, the prince of E... Read full article

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The Ten Commandments Quotes:

Moses: No son could have more love for you than I.
Sethi: Then why are you forcing me to destroy you? What evil has done this to you?
Moses: The evil that men should turn their brothers into beasts of burden, to be stripped of spirit, and hope, and strength - only because they are of another race, another creed. If there is a god, he did not mean this to be so.
Joshua: Praise God, I have found you!
Moses: Joshua? I thought you dead.
Joshua: In the copper mines of Sinai... the living are dead.
Moses: Sephora, bring water. How did you find me?
Joshua: A merchant buying copper saw you in the tent of Jethro.
Moses: [Moses softly tapped Josha's back] Here, you too will find peace, Joshua.
Joshua: [a stunned look came over Joshua's face, as he almost crossed his eyes] Peace? How can you find peace or even want it, while Rameses builds cities mortared with the blood of our people?
Lilia: [singing] Death cometh to me, cometh to set me free. Death cometh to me.
Joshua: No, Lilia, death will not come to you.
Lilia: Joshua! You risk your life in coming here. You are first-born.
Joshua: So are you. I have brought lamb's blood to mark the door posts and lintels, so that the shadow of death will pass you by.
Lilia: It is enough that you thought of me, Joshua. I am outcast among our people. Do not save me from death, Joshua, save me from life!
Joshua: Tomorrow will bring a new world for us, Lilia!
Nefretiri: You need have no fear of me.
Sephora: I feared only his memory of you.
Nefretiri: You have been able to erase it?
Sephora: He has forgotten both of us. You lost him when he went to seek his God. I lost him when he found his God.
Joshua: They told me you were dead.
Lilia: To all I love, I am dead, Joshua.
Joshua: Dathan?
Lilia: Dathan.
Joshua: Of your own free will?
Lilia: Of my own free will.
Joshua: You are no man's slave! The hour of deliverance has come!
Lilia: Not for me, Joshua.
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The Ten Commandments Facts
Originally, when Elmer Bernstein was orchestrating the music to accompany the Great Exodus of the slaves out of Egypt, the music was mournful. Upon hearing it, Cecil B. DeMille ordered him to replace it, substituting joyful, upbeat music to announce the Hebrew slaves' joy, getting their freedom.
Martha Scott, who played Charlton Heston's mother, in his two Biblical epics, The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, was only ten years older than her on-screen son.
The film is usually very slightly edited for TV transmission, although because of numerous and lengthy commercial breaks, most showings clock in at close to four-and-a-half hours. Its length is 3:40, three hours and 40 minutes, commercial-free and continuous on two DVD's. This has led to some humorists commenting as if it had been "trimmed to seven commandments".
At the end of the movie, after Charlton Heston as Moses has turned over leadership of the Israelites to Joshua, he watches as the Israelites march into Caanan. At this point, Moses was supposed to have been enveloped in the fog coming down from the mountain, but the effect was never completed. As a result, Moses is shown to be standing there watching the Israelites go, and this is closer to what is related in the actual Bible than what Cecil B. DeMille originally intended.
The highest-earning live-action film, was filmed in the 1950's and held the record, for forty-eight years, The Passion of the Christ broke the record, in 2004.
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