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).

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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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Quotes from The Ten Commandments

Nefretiri: You will be king of Egypt and I will be your footstool!
Moses: The man stupid enough to use you as a footstool would not be wise enough to rule Egypt.


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.


Nefretiri: [Moses was just called back, from Hebrew mudpits, by Nefreteri] Then, why aren't you kneeling at the feet of a princess?
Moses: I'm afraid the mud pits have stiffened my knees, royal one.
Nefretiri: Shall I call back the guards?
Moses: Do you think they can bend them?


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Facts about The Ten Commandments

According to Hollywood lore, while filming the orgy sequence which precedes Moses' descent from Mount Horeb with the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments engraved, Cecil B. DeMille was perched on top of a ladder delivering his customarily long-winded directions through a megaphone to the hundreds of extras involved in the scene. After droning on to the extras for several minutes, DeMille was distracted by one young woman who was persistently talking to the woman standing next to her. DeMille stopped his speech and addressed everyone's attention to the young woman. "Here," DeMille said, "We have a young woman whose conversation with her friend is apparently more important than listening to her instructions from her director while we are all engaged in making motion picture history. Perhaps the young woman would care to enlighten us all, and tell us what the devil is so important that it cannot wait until after we make this shot." After a moment, of silence and temporary fright, she spoke up and boldly confessed, "I was just saying to my friend, 'I wonder when that bald-headed old fart is gonna call 'Lunch!'" DeMille stared at her for a moment, paused, then lifted his megaphone, and then shouted, "Lunch!"
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.
Babette Bain, Fraser Clarke HestonBabette Bain was Little Miriam, while Fraser Clarke Heston, son of Charlton Heston was Moses, as an infant.
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Best Picture Oscar 1956






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National Film Registry

The Ten Commandments

Released 1956
Inducted 1999
(Sound)




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