The Ten Commandments (1956)

Forget what you THINK you know about Moses: he stammered…, he had a Black Nubian wife…, and his filthy mouth kept him out of the holy lands. This was back when God was meaner and lived in a volcano…, before He moved to heaven (just like Dr Evil had a secret volcano base in the first Austin Powers movie, then a base in outerspace for the sequel…. Coincidence? I don’t think so.)

But the Ten Commandments isn’t about God. It’s about a woman, Neferteri “the beauty of Egypt”. The man she marries will become Pharoe and rule the Earth. Neferteri prefers stepbrother Moses who races chariots and saves old women from being crushed under the monumental obilisk he is raising in honor of their father Moses is helped by the fact he’s played by manly-man Charlton Heston who looks great in a skirt! Neferteri does not want Ramses, the delicious Yul Brenner who also looks great in a skirt, but has a chip on his shoulder from Moses getting all the attention from father. Ramses only wants Neferteri because of the wealth and power that comes with her. Did I mention they all have the same father? Whatever.

The point is Ramses will do anything to discredit Moses and claim Neferteri (and Egypt) for himself. Even trumping up this whole “born a Hebrew slave” rumor to daddy. Neferteri doesn’t mind if Moses gets dirty making mud bricks. She doesn’t care if he’s a Hebrew. She’s open-minded, and as the embodiment of Egypt (and what a body!) she expects to get her way. But racism doesn’t really go away just because you’re in love, not even for a Queen. Moses is banished and Neferteri is forced to marry Ramses instead.

Now learn all ye men, Hebrew and Egyptian alike! If there is ONE moral of this tale you take to your grave it is that a miserable wife will destroy your kingdom, poison you with insults, bring a series of plauges on your house, and kick you in the balls in front of your army. History might know about Moses and Ramses, but DeMille knows about scorned women!

Cecil B DeMille’s swan song is a movie for the ages. At 75 the legendary director was at the peak of his fame, his name a house-hold word and his voice recognized by millions. He knew The Ten Commandments would be his last film. It almost killed him. He wanted it be his most important. A swan-song for the ages.

The film is designed as a series of tableaus pulled from renaissance paintings, marble sculptures, Bible scriptures, and children’s storybooks. Instantly familiar, colorful, and swashbucklingly heroic. Moses becomes a strapping man in the vein of Erol Flynn, using his fists as often as his brains. And of course there is an orgy scene — every DeMille movie has a drunken orgy.

DeMille painstakingly researched the period of Ramses and even connected the Biblical plauges to a legendary volcanic eruption, but he discarded historic accuracy in favor of his audience’s 1950s sensabilities. They didn’t want a history lesson, they wanted a morality play lifted from the Scriptures and carefully sanitized by the censors, and a dazzling fantasy on an epic scale. DeMille gave them a saucy heroine who wasn’t going to hold back, a woman who could manipulate her men into gods and legends.