Run Time: 136 minutes. Studio: Paramount. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Writer: Jeanie Macpherson. Producer: Cecil B. DeMille. Main Cast: Theodore Roberts, Charles de Rochefort, Richard Dix, Rod La Rocque, Edythe Chapman. Cinematographers: Bert Glennon, J. Peverell Marley, Archie Stout, Fred Westerberg. Editor: Anne Bauchens.
Before I first saw this movie I excepted it to simply be a dry run for the 1956 epic by the same director. However this is a very different movie from that later film. This film is separated into two segments. The first segment was what I was excepting more or less, it is the story of Moses straight from the book of Exodus. The second segment is a modern day (well modern in 1923) story about how the Ten Commandments (and the the whole bible for that matter) are still relevant today. This is an excellent film and it is beyond easy to see why it was so popular in it's day. It is often thought by people who don't watch silent films that special effects in these movies were beyond primitive. As any silent film fan knows this is far from the truth and the special effects here hold up very well. In fact I would argue that scenes like God writing the Ten Commandments on the tablets are actually better here than they are in the 1956 film. The first segment of this film while not as epic as the later version felts big then and feels big today. The sets (the Egyptian set in this movie was even larger than the grand Babylonian set in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916)), the effects, the cinematography and the storytelling are all just as absorbing and powerful as they must have been in 1923. I don't see this incredible feat of filmmaking can not move any movie audience. In a much shorter time this achieves very close to the power of the later film and there are a few time it even surpasses it. The second segment will divide movie fans today and is perhaps part of the reason why this movie is not as well known as the later film. The reason for this is that it is unabashedly melodramatic. This portion of the film has all the subtlety of a TV soap opera. Pure unabashed melodrama has certainly fallen out of favor with a lot of movie fans today and there are many who will find this much too forced and over the top. I am not one of those people. Just because melodrama is not for everyone doesn't mean it can't be done well and it is certainly is done very well here. The characters are engaging enough for me to truly care about them, the visual filmmaking is still excellent, the drama works surprisingly well and the story is kind of fun in how over the top it gets at times, while still not taking away from the strong message of the movie.
This film can be found on YouTube.
-Michael J. Ruhland 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.
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