A Grandiose Charlton Heston Guides the Masses in DeMille's Towering Ten Commandments

A true old-school Hollywood blockbuster in the best biblical sense, Paramount’s 1956 rendering of the story of Moses allows Epic genre maestro Cecil B. DeMille his grand finale behind the camera. After decades of mixing elements of religion and titillation to score massive box-office numbers, including the intriguing 1923 version of Commandments, which combines modern era material with passages from the Good Book, 1927’s King of Kings, 1932’s The Sign of the Cross, with both Claudette Colbert and Charles Laughton vamping it up with glee, and Samson and Delilah, the Hedy Lamarr/Victor Mature potboiler which got the 1950s off to a great start for DeMille, at least judging by the public’s reaction at the box office. On the event of his Commandments redux, DeMille was clearly in complete control of his particular artform and fully capable of mounting a mammoth undertaking with great flair, while keeping a firm eye on bringing moviegoers exactly the kind of enticing entertainment they wanted and expected from him. The ace director served the populace well, with The Ten Commandments’ awesome production values, including VistaVision scope, gorgeous Technicolor lensed by Loyal Griggs, A-1 production and costume designs by a host of top craftsmen and women, including Hal Pereira and Edith Head, and an impactful Elmer Bernstein score, combined with DeMille’s confident helming and a top cast of players in synch with their often-florid roles, managing to keep audiences enthralled throughout the narrative’s 220 minutes, regardless of how many seasonal (or otherwise) watches may be involved.

                A true cinema pioneer, DeMille gained major success from the start of this art form, launching his career with 1914’s The Squaw Man, thereby codirecting Hollywood’s first feature film with Oscar Apfel. During the 1910s and 1920s DeMille would continue to thrive as he honed his skills behind the camera, directing such escapist entertainment as 1919’s Male and Female, which helped Gloria Swanson become one of the silent era’s biggest draws, and reaching box-office heights he would become renown for with Commandments and Kings. With the event of sound pictures, after a few attempts (including a remake of Squaw Man), DeMille would make his affluent mark with Cross, then remain one of Hollywood’s most reliable hit makers for the rest of his life with Cleopatra, The Plainsman, Reap the Wild Wind, finishing his director/producer efforts in awesome, megahit fashion with three films that placed among the highest grossing ever: Samson, 1952’s Oscar-winning Best Picture The Greatest Show on Earth and Commandments. With his final directional endeavor, all the years DeMille spent as a master craftsman of large-scale storytelling is in evidence, from the interweaving of the many scenarios and characters in the film, to set pieces such as Moses’ receiving the Commandments on the mountain, to the (for 1956) daring Golden Calf kind-of orgy sequence, to the still-remarkable parting of the Rea Sea, one of filmdom’s most transfixing scenes, with its revolutionary use of special effects. DeMille also utilizes his deep, imposing voice as the movie’s narrator, making sure audiences are reminded who’s responsible for this all-mighty production. Although he left behind a rich filmography, his work on Commandments primarily assures his name will endure with filmgoers.

                Charlton Heston had witnessed a smooth transaction into films after studying drama at Northwestern University, then serving during WWII with the U.S. Air Force, finding his stoic-yet-intense demeanor and chiseled features made him an ideal fit for both idealist heroes and, on occasion, those with a more ambiguous moral bent, as seen in his Hollywood debut Dark City (after Heston had appeared in a student film and a low-budget adaption of Julius Caesar), 1952’s enjoyably overblown Ruby Gentry and The Naked Jungle, 1954’s other great ant-themed film after Them! The same year as Ruby¸ Heston set himself up as the go-to leading man for stupendous studio productions when DeMille picked him of one of the main stars of Greatest Show. After this noteworthy success, the in-demand Heston bided his time is a variety of dramas, adventures and even an attempt at comedy via 1955’s The Private War of Major Benson before DeMille came calling again to offer him the career-defining role of Moses. Heston brings great authority and nobility to the prime role, and suggests both the decency and strength the hero needs to face the wealth of challenges imposed on him throughout the lengthy storyline, while still remaining a figure audiences can identify with and root for. After sealing his fate as himself as (literally) an epic force in film, Heston would in short order reach his pinnacle in this mode with Oscar-winning work as the title figure in another monumental piece of cinema, 1959’s Ben-Hur. Continuing in (mainly) heroic mode with the hits El Cid and Planet of the Apes, and via intriguing more personal fare such as Major Dundee and Will Penny, Heston would build on his solid filmography during the 1960s. Embracing villainy with glee, Heston was in fine form as Cardinal Richelieu in 1973’s The Three Musketeers and its sequel, while convincingly tackling the popular disaster genre with Earthquake and Airport 1975 and gaining one of his most quotable lines in Soylent Green. Moving into the 1980s and beyond, as a Hollywood elder stateman Heston would focus more on offscreen endeavors, but return with his customary forceful presence intact for “guest” type appearances in hits such as Tombstone, Wayne’s World 2, True Lies, then two apropos entries among his final credits (before his death in 2008), in the 2001 update of Planet of the Apes and as the voice of Judah Ben-Hur in the 2003 remake.

                1956 brought one of the greatest years ever onscreen for a performer, with Yul Brynner a magnetic standout in three of the year’s major critical and box-office successes, Anatasia, The King and I and Commandments. Making his film debut in 1949’s Port of New York after a fascinating globe-trotting life (starting with his 1920 birth in Russia) which included working as a bilingual radio announcer during WWII, appearing on Broadway opposite Mary Martin in Lute Song and serving as a director of live television at CBS during the network’s early years, Brynner would break through to major fame with his singular, Tony-winning work in The King and I, which opened on Broadway in 1951, a role he would end up playing over 4,600 times on stage, up until just before his 1985 death. Recreating the flavorful role on film to astounding critical and audience reaction, with an Oscar his ultimate victory after such stellar 1956 output, Brynner followed this with equally authoritative, mesmerizing work as Ramesses II, Moses’ chief counterpoint (DeMille had offered him the role after seeing him onstage in King). Imbuing an exotic sensuality and dynamic emotionally driven performance style, Brynner enlivens Commandments with each formidable appearance. Brynner would complete his awesome 1956 hat trick with another engaging, sexy account opposite Ingrid Bergman (his female Oscar counterpart for the year) in Anatasia. Inevitably Brynner, now a superstar and top ten box-office draw as the most famous screen baldy since Erich von Stroheim, would never match this once-in-a-generation type of cinematic year (see also Gloria Grahame’s 1952 and Sidney Poitier’s 1967). However, plenty of interesting work lay ahead, including 1958’s The Brothers Karamazov (as Dmitri), Solomon and Sheba with the equally alluring Gina Lollobrigida, then another major classic with 1960’s The Magnificent Seven, a late career hit with 1973’s sci-fi Westworld, and frequent returns to the stage to gain new legions of fans with The King and I.

                In the two main leading female roles, Yvonne DeCarlo and Anne Baxter offer satisfying contrasting takes, with De Carlo bringing warmth and subtilty to her portrayal of Sephora, Moses’ supportive, understanding wife, while Anne Baxter goes full 1950’s melodramatic mode as Nefretiri, the seductive princess with her own designs on Moses. The earnestness and skill De Carlo brought to her best roles, such as one of film noir’s most believable and captivating femme fatales in Criss Cross, is in full evidence in Commandments, with De Carlo adding admirable focus and conviction to the part, while matching the daunting Heston strength-for-strength as they illustrate the strong bond between Moses and Sephora. Baxter lends the florid intensity that helped land her an Oscar for The Razor’s Edge and convey the proper venom as the title character in All About Eve to her grandiloquent work as Nefretiri. In a huge production enacting alongside two imposing male costars, Baxter appears intent on keeping pace with all the flamboyant onscreen activity, and succeeds in vividly embellishing each of Nefretiri’s ignoble actions with energy and a hefty amount of emoting, resulting in a performance that may not be among Baxter’s most dexterous work, but one that fits in well with the general fun, elaborate tone of DeMille’s vision.

Several other members of the stacked, all-star cast also instill plenty of ham into their meaty roles. As the underhanded Dathan, Edward G. Robinson is in his liveliest gangster mode, and therefore ranks high among the most noticeable portrayals. Others adept at often being up to no good in films, including Vincent Price, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Judith Anderson, stand out with their typical aplomb. Regarding those taking a more subdued approach, Nina Foch and Martha Scott are both believable and likeable as Moses’ adopted and biological mothers, and Olive Deering, whom DeMille first used in Samson, has her ultra-soulful eyes and haunting presence well-utilized as Moses’ sister, Miriam. The lovely, ethereal Debra Paget solidifies her place as one of the era’s top ingenues, after starting off the decade in fine fashion with Broken Arrow then, around the same time as Commandments, appearing as Elvis Presley’s first onscreen romantic interest in Love Me Tender. In Commandments, as Lilia Paget maintains a wide-eyed, appealing innocence, even when placed (abet against her will) in close proximity to that Golden Calf, with its inherent debaucheries. Handsome, stoic John Derek, in his signature role as Joshua, falls somewhere into between the overt playing and a more straightforward style of acting, while other well-known names are seen to good advantage, including DeMille regular Henry Wilcoxon, John Carradine (as Moses’ brother, Aaron), Douglas Dumbrille, H.B. Warner, Ian Keith and Woody Strode, properly majestic as the King of Ethiopia. In bit parts, ten-year-old (or so) Kathy Garver can be spotted before greater fame on television, ditto Clint Walker, Michael Ansara, Robert Vaughn and Mike (Touch) Connors, Herb Alpert pops up as a drummer and Heston’s son, Fraser, appears as the infant Moses.

During a year of immense productions (Giant, War and Peace and the eventual Best Picture winner Around the World in Eighty Days chief among these) The Ten Commandments placed at the top of the heap, at least in terms of a box-office pull as colossal as the sites seen onscreen. After its initial first run, with rentals of $43,000,000 (according to Variety) the epic challenged Gone with the Wind and newcomer Ben-Hur in regards to highest box-office take ever (re-releases of Wind would move it ahead, with Commandments eventually outdoing Hur); today Commandments still sits among the top ten hits ever, when figures are adjusted for inflation. Unlike some other DeMille tour de forces, reviewers were largely also onboard with Commandments from the start, with many citing the film as the ultimate DeMille achievement. Come awards season, the film made a nice showing (outside of DeMille, who did not place among the top directors either at the Director’s Guild Awards or at the Oscars), with Brynner’s work being cited in his Best Actor win from the National Board of Review (along with his other two 1956 screen ventures), helping him to later sew up that Best Actor Oscar win over imposing competition, specifically Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life. Heston was nominated for a Golden Globe, and come Oscar time the movie made the Best Picture lineup among its seven nominations and won an Oscar for John P. Fulton’s superb special effects. More recent accolades include placement at #10 on the AFI 2008 list of the top epics and inclusion on the National Film Registry’s 1999 list. With yearly television screenings over the last 50 years or so around Easter, DeMille’s classic saga has not diminished in appeal, with each new generation finding avid audiences ready to indulge in the movie’s juicy merits, whether one is viewing the film for the first time or as many times as there are commandments. With staggering production values, a “Cast of Thousands” eagerly selling every aspect of the outsized scenario, and a director determined to make his final journey behind the camera his most enduring, The Ten Commandments still reigns supreme as one of the 1950’s definitive films, worthy of a watch during Eastertime, or elsewhere on the calendar.