The Ten Commandments (1923)

Nearly 20 years ago now I started writing a book about portrayals of Moses on Film. I abandoned it long ago, even the few chapters I had written would pretty much writing from scratch were I to pick it up again, so whilst I've written and reviewed it extensively in the past, I've never actually posted anything here on it, so I figured it was time to remedy that. Much of what follows was written back then so is not my best work, but nevertheless hopefully it's useful.

Given his reputation today it seems hard to believe that there was a time when Cecil B. DeMille was a leading figure in Hollywood but had not yet made a biblical epic. By 1923 he already had 45 films to his name and only decided to make a film on the Ten Commandments after running a competition to "get the idea for his next picture” .Eight entrants snagged the $1000 prize money, but one stood out for its hookline “You cannot break the Ten Commandments - they will break you".

DeMille’s and his screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson decided to split the film into two parts, with a Prologue concentrates on the story of the Exodus giving way to a modern morality tale, for the remainder of the filmDeMille and his built and then subsequently buried the massive sets in Guadalupe, Santa Maria in California's Mojave Desert 

Among the film's many distinctions are that it was amongst the first to use of Two Strip Technicolor. DeMille put it to good use, in particular as a device for highlighting the emotions of the Hebrews as they left the promised land. The use of the Technicolor, the orthodox refugees and the soundtrack at this point make this scene one of the movie’s most enduring.

Amongst DeMille's motives for the film was perhaps a desire to inject some much needed morality into Hollywood which was in danger of being engulfed by the scandal surrounding (the wrongly accused) Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. It worked Photoplay, amongst others, described it as "wonderful entertainment and a marvellous sermon” and was said to have inspired large numbers of people to become rabbis, priests and ministers. More significantly the film's opening titles explicitly referenced "the shattering thunder of the World War" arguing that following the Commandments was the only "way out" of the situation happening again.

The ‘Prologue’ concentrates on the story of the exodus, from the oppression of the Hebrews through to the giving of the Ten Commandments  getting as far as the worship of the golden calf.Just as the confrontation between the Israelites and Moses is just about to reach its climax the story fades and the viewer is transported to the dinner table of a 1920’s mother telling the story to her two adult sons. The younger son, Dan declares the commandments to be “bunk" and sets about breaking as many as he can. This upsets both his fiercely religious mother and his more even-handed brother (who accuses her of using the Bible "like a whip") Of course Dan ultimately gets his comeuppance when a church he has built using shoddy materials collapses and kills his mother. Dan is forced to flee to Mexico with the authorities in hot pursuit, but is caught in a storm, ultimately, like the Egyptians being dashed into the sea.

DeMille uses lighting effectively elsewhere in the film, most notably within Pharaoh’s palace which despite its grandeur is shot as dark and dingy. It may be filled with reproductions of the treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb, but by making it seem shadowy and gloomy DeMille further stresses his point.

DeMille also uses two recurring motifs to tell his story. The most obvious is his use of the tablets which the Ten Commandments are given on. In addition to the actual tablets being seen in the story, as well as appearing as a backdrop to the intertitles on three different occasions their shape is made by light shining on stone.  The first of these is when God is about to reveal the commandments to Moses. Although it is possible that this is linked to the sin of the Hebrews below, it is more likely that it is drawing attention to the motif for use in the second half of the film. When it does occur in the second half of the film it appears to signify God’s impending judgement - firstly before the church collapses on Mrs. McTavish, and just before Dan’s boat crashes in to the rocks.

The other recurring motif is that of leprosy. The first character in the film to catch leprosy is Miriam who contracts the disease as she worships and caresses the golden calf. She repents to Moses she is seemingly healed. Leprosy enters the film again in the second half where the titles announce that Dan’s smuggled jute has come via a leper colony. A figure is shown escaping from the bags of jute, which turns out to be Sally Lang who infects Dan, who infects Mary Leigh. Sally Lang and Dan are killed as a result of the phobia generated by the disease, but Mary Leigh finds healing and redemption through listening to the words Jesus said to another leper in John’s story.

DeMille chose his long time friend Theodore Roberts to play the part of Moses, their ninth and final film with DeMille ending the relationship between the two that had stretched back to the days of DeMille’s acting career. Roberts’s Moses is portrayed as a supremely confident man, assured in the certain success of his mission. He first appears striding into Pharaoh's throne room, and is far closer to the prince of the realm that he was brought up as, than the fugitive shepherd he later became.

However, in seeking to establish the most important feature about the portrayal in Moses it is vital to remember that it is not he who is the biggest star of the film but the commandments themselves (The film is after all named in their honour). By comparison the Moses character operates only as a delivery boy/midwife. Although he seems the most important character once he has delivered the commandments into the world there is little more for him to do than to fade out and watch the decalogue take over. (This interesting device, of creating a character who appears to be the star of the film, only for them to disappear and be superseded by another, was later used to great effect by Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho). 

For the remainder of the film the other characters play their part but it is the commandments that are the real hero. Ultimately they win out and the strap line that inspired the film (“You cannot break the commandments , they will break you.”) proves its point. When the role of Moses is compared to the prominence of the commandments it becomes apparent that the major role of Moses in this film is that of a lawgiver

The result of all these elements is that we have a Moses who has nowhere left to go. He is the epitome of wisdom, trust in God. To anyone that does not know the story well he appears faultless, perhaps even sinless. Certainly incidents such as the fit of anger that saw him murder an Egyptian, or the doubts that loomed so large at the burning bush have been excluded from the film to portray Moses in the most positive light possible. What else would be appropriate for the giver of God’s laws?

Sadly the outcome is a rather one dimensional, whitewashed image of Moses, which despite its no doubt intended piety leaves him lacking any real depth. Except for a momentary look of horror when Pharaoh orders the Israelites to make their bricks without straw Moses constantly stands firm, unswayed by the situations around him. In reality the bible presents us with a very different Moses who when called by God in the opening chapters of Exodus comes up with a string of excuses rather than a confident knowing smile.

God’s role in the film however, is markedly different. Seemingly absent from the film. The idea of an unseen God is not an unusual one, but as this is a silent film he is also unheard. The only real manifestation of him is as the parter of the Red Sea, and as creator of the fireworks that accompany the unveiling of the commandments. 

Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that The Ten Commandments fails to see the idiosyncrasies in the way it proposes its remedy. Whilst it highlights God’s law as the solution to the bloodshed of the war, it inadvertently shows God killing thousands of Egyptians in the process. The irony of these deaths (of these nameless, faceless Egyptians) in a film about how God’s law can save us from the horrors of the First World War, is lost. 

polarisation occurs with Pharaoh's son. When he appears he is clearly a spoilt, objectionable child such that the audience can have very little compassion for him when he dies in the tenth plague. Yet the bible reveals nothing of his character. It would have been equally faithful to the biblical text if the son of Pharaoh had been played by a wide-eyed ‘cute’ child, and yet the death of such a child would be considerably less palatable. Regardless of the character of Pharaoh’s child, the death of the first born children, once stripped of religious triumphalism, is one of the most troubling stories in the bible.

It is in the second half of the film that God’s implied character shows through the most vividly. 

“you cannot break the ten commandments, they will break you”.

Do McTavish’s buildings fall down because he has cheated on his building materials, or because God is punishing him for doing so? The same ambiguity also surrounds the other events in the last scenes of the film. A similar question might be raised regarding Dan’s leprosy.

It is no until the penultimate scene in the film that DeMille resolves the issue for us. As the Dan’s boat is dashed against the rocks we see a light shining on them in the shape of the tablet motif. Significantly, this is the only incident in the second half of the film that could not be explained away by scientific reasoning, implying that not only did God not prevent Danny’s tragic accident, but that he specifically ordained it. God’s vengeance is meted out and the one who broke all of the commandments appears to be killed for it.

This path is presumably best illustrated by Mrs McTavish’s other son John, who, as noted above, is something of a Christ figure in the story. On the one hand he is righteous and good, but he is also loving and considerate. Perhaps more importantly for viewers in a post modern age, he is not afraid to speak out when he sees things wrong, challenging both mother and his brother in the course of the film. It is often stated that it is much harder to play a supremely good character than an evil one, and it is to the credit of both DeMille and actor Richard Dix that apart from moments of tweeness John is the most attractive character in the movie.

If DeMille intended his audience to aspire to John’s character, he perhaps also anticipated that they would best relate to the character of Mary Leigh. Essentially she is the only character in the film whose views change, moving from indifference in the opening scenes to finding forgiveness and healing in the later ones. Although she is mislead at the start of the second half, when she turns to the Christ figure for help she finds God’s grace and forgiveness. DeMille’ then essentially presents his viewers with a choice. Will they chose secularism and modernity, blinkered religious extremism, or aspire to be good, honest and compassionate?

Giving of the Ten Commandments

My church is looking at the Ten Commandments at the moment, so I got asked to dig out some clips of Moses receiving the commandments. I looked at the following five which are probably the best crafted of those available:

The Ten Commandments (1923)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Moses the Lawgiver (1975)
Moses (1996)
Ten Commmandments (2006)

As well as being the best clips they are probably the most widely known. The other popular Moses film that is not on the list is obviously The Prince of Egypt, but this only really shows a brief shot of Moses holding the commandments right before the credits roll. Likewise there is no equivalent scene in 1974's Moses und Aron For the record I could also have included clips from the following:

Green Pastures (1936)
The Living Bible - Moses, Leader of God's People (1958)
Greatest Heroes of the Bible - The Ten Commandments (1979)
History of the World Part 1 (1981)
The Ten Commandments: The Musical (2006)
Ten Commandments (2007)

...not to mention a whole host of cartoons.

Anyway, for anyone interested in repeating the exercise elsewhere, here are the start and end places/times of the clips I used - the clip length, and the version that I used. In most cases these are region 2, but I imagine the difference will be very slight, particularly as the DVD releases for the first two are identical regardless of the regional code. Links are to previous posts on each film. I've also added the leading actor's name and a few comments.
The Ten Commandments (1923)
Ten Commandments (1956) 50th Anniversary Collection – region 2
Disc 3 - Chapter 6; 35:05 – 42:48 [7:43 minutes]
Moses played by Theodore Roberts
This is the oldest of those available, and, for those unused to silent films, the style takes a bit of getting used to. Note the age of Moses here, and also that DeMille's citations are from Exodus 31 and 32 rather than the first account of the giving of the commandments in Exodus 19 and 20.

The Ten Commandments (1956)
Ten Commandments (1956) 50th Anniversary Collection – region 2
Disc 2 – Chapter 15; 73:12 – 78:45 [4:30 minutes]
Moses played by Charlton Heston
This is, obviously the most famous version, but it's utterly reliant on DeMille's earlier version. The streak of fire writing the commandments is fresh, but otherwise it's just a remake. Note how in both examples Moses receives the commandments at the top of the mountain, and whilst commandments 1 and 2 are being broken (not that the people would have known given this film's chronology!)

Moses the Lawgiver (1975)
Network/Granada Ventures – Region 2
Disc 2 – Chapter 3; 10:48 – 15:00 [4:12 minutes]
Moses played by Burt Lancaster
This is perhaps the most controversial version of these events, but it's relatively accurate to the accounts in Exodus. The clip ends with Moses on his way up the mountain with the tablets already under his arm, with the people having already agreed. An earlier scene shows Moses hearing God's call (in Lancaster's own voice) from the top of the mountain, but it's entirely ambiguous as to whether these commandments are from God or from Moses. It's also good how they are given more as prose than as "commandments".

Ten Commmandments (2006)
Disc 2 – Chapter 7; 68:10 – 72:04 [3:52 minutes]
Moses played by Dougray Scott
This is the most recent of the five, and it's main concern seems to be showing off it's technology. There's a heavy dependence on DeMille too - the idea of Moses going up the mountain to get the tablets, and of them being literally written by God (although not literally the "finger of God" as the text states), not to mention the desire to make this a showy scene.

Moses (1996)
Time Life Box Set – region 2
Part 2; 29:30 – 36:20 [6:50 minutes]
Moses played by Sir Ben Kingsley
This is perhaps my favourite of these five clips, largely because I had to see it to make me realise how the story actually appears in Exodus. It's sticks very closely to the text (Exodus 19:10-20:21), but given how stagey other version have been, this is a good thing, which is also why I recommend showing it last. I also like the idea of the commandments being something that welled up from the people as they encountered God, and the idea of the people corporately being the mouthpiece of God.

Dan Castellaneta to Play DeMilleSands of Oblivion

Peter Chattaway has details of Anchor Bay's Sands of Oblivion which is being released on DVD next month. The story revolves around the set for DeMille's 1923 version of The Ten Commandments which was buried in the Californian desert upon the film's completion. DeMille joked at the time that "If, a thousand years from now, archaeologists happen to dig beneath the sands of Guadalupe, I hope they will not rush into print with the amazing news that Egyptian civilization, far from being confined to the banks of the Nile, extended all the way to the Pacific coast of North America."

It seems that DeMille's words became something of a self-(un)fulfilling prophecy. In 1983 filmmaker Peter Brosnan and archaeologist John Parker, began a quest to find the ruins in the sand dunes of Guadalupe, California. This new film has nothing to do with them, as far as I know. It's a horror film / conspiracy drama which is partially set in 1923 but also follows the fortunes of a "soon-to-be divorced archaeologist couple Jesse and Alice Carter". According to this movie, the reason that DeMille buried the set was nothing to do with foiling his competitors but because "the set holds the spirit of a vengeful Egyptian god, trapped in a smuggled artifact".It's certainly an unusual premise and I guess it'll be a combination of The Mummy, Stargate and Shadow of the Vampire. There are various interesting characters in the cast, including George Kennedy (from perhaps my favourite film Cool Hand Luke), but the most interesting casting choice, to me at least is that of Dan Castellaneta as Cecil B. DeMille. Castellaneta has made his name in The Simpsons but his face and his normal speaking voice are largely unknown. SO in some ways despite his fame he's a fresh face.

And the interesting thing is that he actually looks a wee bit like DeMille as well. The baldness clearly helps, and the photo of DeMille below doesn't make the similarity as obvious as some pictures of him from around 1923, but nevertheless it will be interesting to see how he plays the role. There's obviously a good deal of footage of DeMille around - not least from the opening to his 1956 remake of the film in question.

DeMille's Collaborations Redux

I've mentioned the great Cecil B. DeMille in two posts recently, and I've done a bit of searching on them so I thought I'd refer back.

The first was regarding Michael Curtiz. Peter Chattaway noted some similarities between Curtiz's Noah's Ark (1928) and DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923). When I was preparing to write my review of Noah's Ark I came across some more information which suggested that the influence could have worked in both directions.

Yesterday I was flicking through the the substantial liner notes for the Criterion Collection's release of DeMille's 1927 The King of Kings when I noticed some information regarding Noah's Ark. It seems DeMille was due to work on a similar project about Noah in 1926 called The Deluge, but the plug was pulled when DeMille got wind of Curtiz's project. This shows the two were at least partially aware of each other's work, and that execs then preferred to stop making a film if it was too similar to another (rather than go head to head as often happens today).

Interestingly neither DeMille's autobiography, nor Charles Higham's biography mention Curtiz at all (at least, not in their indicies).

Which leads me nicely onto the second post about DeMille to which I want to return. Last week I commented on a piece in the The Villages Daily Sun newspaper which claimed that DeMille made films with Edgar J. Banks (dubbed the original Indiana Jones). As with Curtiz there's no mention of Banks in the autobiography and Higham's book.

I also (finally!) got hold of Henry S. Noerdlinger's book "Moses and Egypt: The Documentation to the Motion Picture the Ten Commandments" about the 1956 DeMille film. Again, despite the depth of information produced in this book, there's no mention of Banks. Admittedly, DeMille's later version of this film was not released until 10 years after Bank's death, but if DeMille and Banks really were working on films together it's strange that nothing Banks achieved merited a mention in Noerdlinger's book.

That's not, at all, to say the story is a hoax, simply that if it is true it was one very well kept secret.

I'll end on a trivia piece. DeMille made bible films with Banks, who was the inspiration for the Indiana Jones films made by Steven Spielberg, who also directed Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which included a clip from the 1956 Ten Commandments - a bible film directed by DeMille. I hope those people who love making these kind of links appreciate that one. I wonder if DeMille ever pondered making a film about Banks?

Did Edgar J. Banks make films with Cecil B. DeMille?

Peter T. Chattaway has a piece on claims that Indiana Jones-style archaeologist Edgar J. Banks (right) made films with Cecil B. DeMille. (How that for a string of initialised middle names?).

The story surfaced at The Villages Daily Sun paper in Florida. Here's the interesting bit:

[Banks] made motion pictures with famed director Cecil B. DeMille

"They were involved in a company known as Sacred Films," Wasilewska [Banks' biographer] said. "The films were not only 'Sacred,' they were secret. The company wasn’t registered anywhere. But it really did exist."

That incredible claim is supported by about 200 old movie stills from sets of Biblical epics Banks’ late daughter, Daphne McLachlan, left to her children.

"In 1920, at the beginning of moviemaking, a lot of people were making movies about Biblical events. But they were all poor-quality, low-budget productions," Wasilewska said. "This was very different. This was high-class, very professional. It was a secret company, but many important people were involved, including famous actors and actresses."

What became of the films is one of many puzzles related to Banks. Banks’ next endeavor is also shrouded in mystery.

"With the experience he got in California, he saw he could start a company in Florida to produce his own films," Wasilewska said. "He used local actors, and so it would not be very expensive."

Banks’ company, Seminole Films, made movies depicting life in ancient Rome and Greece, but the world never saw the films. In a weird twist of irony, the archaeologist who brought so many treasures out of the ground, deposited his cinematic efforts into the earth.

"He actually did make some movies, but none were released," Wasilewska said. "He opened this company and he couldn’t sell the movies he made, so one day he packed all of the movies in tin cans and buried them on his property."

The movies were never recovered.

I'll try and remember to check my DeMille biography and auto-biography to see if there is any mention of Banks. I may also check the credits for DeMille's 1923 version of The Ten Commandments to see if Banks is mentioned there at all.

Noah's Ark (1928) - Review

Noah's Ark came at the end of two distinctly different eras in the cinema. Firstly the age of the silent movie was drawing to a close. The Jazz Singer had opened everyone's eyes to the potential of talking pictures and both cinemas and studios alike were making the necessary changes to take advantage of the new technology.

In the meantime studios were stuck with the problem of what to do with half finished films which had been, thus far, shot as silents, but risked being seen as outmoded unless drastic action was taken. The solution that many studios took was to complete some of the remaining scenes with sound so that the films were part silent but also part talking. Hitchcock's The Lodger, where only the opening sequence is silent, is one famous example, particularly because it's so innovative with its use of sound.

In Noah's Ark, however, sound occurs more haphazardly. Characters talk, but then go back to miming again moments later. The soundtrack takes advantage of the new technology more effectively using sound effects to complement the action to good effect.

It was also the end of the first golden age of the biblical epic, which, despite the popularity of bible based films since the dawn of cinema, had peaked during the 1920s. The director of Noah's Ark, Michael Curtiz, had already made his name with a string of biblical films including Sodom und Gomorrah, Samson und Delila¹ (both 1922) and Die Sklavenkönigin (The Moon of Israel - 1924). The following year DeMille's The Ten Commandments had been a huge success and the great showman has followed it up four years later with his version of the life of Jesus in The King of Kings.

DeMille's movies, as well as others such as Ben Hur (1925) set new benchmarks for production scale, and Noah's Ark certainly follows suit. The size of some of the sets, and the impressive special effects are truly awesome. The scenes of the flood, complete with a storm and torrents of water appearing from nowhere, are truly impressive. Tragically the quest for drama went too far and several extras were drowned during the filming of these scenes.

The problem with the ever-growing spectacle of the biblical epics was that the depression was just around the corner - something that, bizarrely, this film seems to predict. The combination of reduced cash flow, and the birth of the Hays Production Code brought the end to the first golden age of the biblical epic. The trend would not really get going again until the 1950s. By then Curtiz had moved into more film making including now classic films such as Casablanca and White Christmas.

It's actually the modern story which is overarching in this film. Whilst there is a brief prologue which features footage of Noah, a statue of Jesus and a montage of stock market clips, the story proper starts in 1914. In the first of the film's three catastrophes, a train carrying the major characters crashes and a young, blond German girl (Mary) is pulled from the wreckage by buddies Travis and Al. Travis and Mary fall instantly in love, but their relationship is threatened by the outbreak of the first world war and a Russian spy who had also been aboard the train. Despite getting married the couple are separated due to the war, and are not reunited until Mary finds herself in front of Travis' firing squad. An explosion intervenes and leaves the couple trapped by the rubble along with an old preacher who tells them the story of Noah.

This then forms the context for the Noah story. The actors from the first part of the film take similar roles in the Noah story (à la The Wizard of Oz): so Noah is played by the same actor as the old preacher; Travis and Al pair up with Japheth and Ham; Mary doubles as Japheth's sweetheart, Miriam; and the Russian spy is the evil, idol-worshipping King Nephilim. The minor actors also double up in a similar fashion.

However, the story of Noah is just a pretext for a re-run of the Travis-Mary story. Miriam is chosen at random to be sacrificed to King Nephilim's God Jaguth. When Japheth comes to her rescue he is enslaved only to be freed by the arrival of the flood. Once the pair are safely aboard the ark, the script reverts, almost immediately, to the end of the modern story.

It's difficult to know quite how much Curtiz was influenced by DeMille and vice versa. Around the early 1920s both men borrowed D.W. Griffith's idea of paralleling a biblical story with a modern melodrama. Curtiz's Sodom und Gomorrah and Samson und Delila seem to have come out slightly before DeMille's The Ten Commandments, but Curtiz's Moses film
Die Sklavenkönigin (The Moon of Israel) definitely came out afterwards. But given the time taken to film such large scale films, and that the two men were working in different continents at the time it's certainly possible that the two were almost completely unaware of what the other was doing.

What is clear, however, is the way in which Curtiz draws on aspects of all three of these previous films in making Noah's Ark. There are a myriad of visual and textual references to other biblical stories, especially those he had already filmed, as well as some to the story of Jesus. So there are people crushed under golden calves, climbing up mountains, burning bushes, lightning writing on tablets, people being blinded and forced to drive a mill, falling temples, water falling lava like from above engulfing those in its path, stabbings in the side, references to Golgotha, and words taken from the Lord's prayer.

Unfortunately, in the midst of all these biblical references the actual story of Noah is lost. The old preacher's story gets so taken up in pagan temples, dramatic floods, and the love between the protagonists that it's unlikely it helped those he'd sought to illuminate. The film never gets behind the character of Noah and has precious little to say about the events that occurred once everyone was on board.

It's a shame because some of the film's sequences are incredibly well executed. In particular the scene where the animals rush towards the ark, capturing the urgency and the chaos of the scene is masterful. DeMille would have shown animals marching in in precise double file. Here Curtiz is more than happy to adhere a little more loosely to a literal reading. This makes the scene far more natural and realistic, as well as putting it in line with idea of the animals being sent by God rather than gathered by Noah.

Unfortunately the film's weakness detract from such merits. The modern story is mediocre and overly melodramatic, whereas the Noah episode gets lost in its own technical proficiency. It was the last time Curtiz made a biblical epic, and the last time a film solely about Noah made it onto the silver screen.

1 - The extent to which Curtiz was involved in Samson und Delila is unclear some sources list him as only the costume designer, whereas others list him as supervising director and credit him with the film's success.

Peter Chattaway on Noah's Ark (1928)

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to post on some of the film portrayals of Noah in the run up to the release of Evan Almighty. One of the film's I plan to cover later this week is Michael Curtiz's 1928 film Noah's Ark.

Anyone eager to find out about that particular film may be interested to read Peter Chattaway's observations on it which he posted yesterday. In particular he notes the similarities with DeMille's 1923 film The Ten Commandments. There are a few clips from it as well which will fascinate anyone who has longed to see this film.