The Ten Commandments (1956) | |
| Director(s) | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Producer(s) | Cecil B. DeMille, Henry Wilcoxon (associate) |
| Top Genres | Adventure, Drama, Epic, Historical |
| Top Topics | Ancient World, Book-Based, Exotic Lands, Religious, Sibling Rivalry |
Featured Cast:
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)
| Award | Recipient | Result |
| Best Art Direction | Art Direction: Hal Pereira, Walter H. Tyler, Albert Nozaki; Set Decoration: Samuel M. Comer, Ray | Nominated |
| Best Cinematography | Loyal Griggs | Nominated |
| Best Costume Design | Edith Head, Ralph Jester, John Jensen, Dorothy Jeakins, Arnold Friberg | Nominated |
| Best Film Editing | Anne Bauchens | Nominated |
| Best Picture | Cecil B. DeMille, Producer | Nominated |
The Ten Commandments BlogHub Articles:
The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)
By Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop ButtonWhile 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 ButtonWhile 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 ButtonWhile 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 ButtonWhile 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 LoversTonight, 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
Memnet: You will never wear it.
Nefretiri: [surprised] Why not?
Memnet: I have brought you a cloth more revealing... send them away.
Nefretiri: [nodding to her servants] Go then, while I hear what this puckered old persimmon has to say.
Memnet: For thirty years, I have been silent. Now, all the kings of Egypt, cry out to me, from their tombs, "Let no Hebrew sit upon our throne."
Nefretiri: What are you saying?
Memnet: Rameses has the blood of many kings.
Nefretiri: And Moses?
Memnet: He is lower than the dust. Not one drop of royal blood flows through his veins. He is the son of Hebrew slaves.
Nefretiri: I'll have you torn into so many pieces, even the vultures wont find them. Who hatched this lie? Rameses?
Memnet: Rameses does not know... yet.
Nefretiri: You will repeat this to Bithiah.
Memnet: Bithiah drew a slave child, from the Nile, called him son and Prince of Egypt, blinding herself to the truth and the pain of an empty womb.
Nefretiri: Were you alone, with, Bithiah?
Memnet: A little girl led me to the Hebrew woman, Yochabel, that the child might be suckled by his true mother.
Nefretiri: Take care, old frog. You croaked too much, against Moses!
Memnet: Would you mingle the blood of slaves, with your own?
Nefretiri: He will be my husband. I shall have no other.
[Memnet then shows Nefretiri the Hebrew cloth, she had been kept hidden, for thirty years. Memnet got it, when she and Bithiah, were alone]
Memnet: Then, use this, to wrap your firstborn. Torn from a Levite's robe. It was Moses' swaddling cloth.
Nefretiri: And your shrowd. Do you think I care whose son he is?
Memnet: Rameses ca
Sethi: The one who I choose will be the best man to rule Egypt. I owe that to my fathers, not to my sons.
Rameses: Now speaks the rat that would be my ears.
Dathan: Too many ears tie a rat's tongue.
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Facts about The Ten Commandments
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.
In the scene in which Rameses carried the dead body of his son, (Eugene Mazzola), onto the arms of the statue of Sokar, the body changed from Eugene Mazzola's actual body to a wax dummy. The statue was unable to support Mazzola's actual body weight, and it was also difficult for Mazzola to be stay, motionless, in one place, as if he were dead, after he was placed on the statue.
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