GROSS/47 1956 - The Ten Commandments - cold war artefact
It's a big, silly, camp thing and an anti-Communist weapon and I'm definitely not writing about it. Definitely.
Gross is every year’s top-grossing movie, since 1913, reviewed.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, director CECIL B. DEMILLE, writers AENEAS MACKENZIE, JESSE LASKY Jr., JACK GARISS, FREDRIC M. FRANK, cast CHARLTON HESTON, YUL BRYNNER, ANNE BAXTER, EDWARD G. ROBINSON, production MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATES/PARAMOUNT PICTURES, 1956, 220 MINUTES.
I’m not writing pages about this stupid whale of a movie, this cursed aircraft carrier of a film. Seriously. I mean I suppose I could write about the many absurdities of The Ten Commandments (Google it). Or about its wickedness - there’s nothing Christian about this thing. Not a moment of forgiveness or pity or grace in the whole three hours and 38 minutes. I could write about the polished cast. Vincent Price somehow uncomfortable doing cruel when he’s so used to doing weird. Anne Baxter’s perfect film noir heroine, ready at a moment’s notice to throw an overnight bag into the Chevy. Edward G. Robinson’s sour demeanour and huggable midriff. Yul Brynner’s fabulous, straight-faced, straight-backed delivery of his wildly silly lines. And the lines themselves. Every one crafted to within an inch of its life. Jewel-like bubblegum-Shakespeare. I could write about the look of the thing. Creamy Cinemascope from horizon to horizon. The costumes (Edith Head and four others were nominated for a costume Oscar for this movie). Ancient Egypt rebuilt, to scale, and in Egypt. Or about Heston, the cold war weapon. Smooth, like a Polaris missile, slipping skywards out of its silo, an American propaganda device, menacing not just communists and cringeing fellow-travellers but the whole field of collective or mutual or shared endeavour. He’s the nub of the thing, of course, DeMille’s nuclear deterrent, primed and ready. A human loyalty oath. Deployed to cinemas worldwide, lethal payload efficiently delivered. Socialism? Don’t even think about it. Click. Bang.
Step into this time machine and enjoy ten minutes with writer Jesse Lasky Jr., talking about DeMille, from the BBC World Service in 1981.
Some lovely, disarming photographs taken on the Ten Commandments set by Yul Brynner. Mostly actors smoking and waiting around for the next take.
The Ten Commandments is still weirdly revered - by neocons, evangelicals, Catholics and even ordinary human beings everywhere.
Here’s the Hollywood Reporter’s 1956 review of the movie. They liked it: “If it could be summed up in a word, the word would be sublime.”