Today's casual movie fans know director Cecil B. DeMille for his sweeping epics, especially focused on Biblical stories. In his earlier marriage comedies he inserted brief sequences which were highly elaborate set pieces complimenting the plots. But it was in December 1923's "The Ten Commandments" DeMille began producing big-budgeted movies based on stories from the Bible.
DeMille was getting tired of directing bedroom farces of manners that were not attracting the number of viewers to the theaters as they had been in the past. He solicited ideas for his next film in early 1923 by holding a contest for his loyal fans to offer their opinions on what his next movie should be about. One suggestion from a Lansing, Michigan, respondent hit a cord straight to the director's heart: "You cannot break the 'Ten Commandments-they will break you." Voila, thought DeMille, that's it. He immediately teamed up with his favorite screenwriter, Jeanie MacPherson, to compose a treatment, divided into two parts.
'The Prologue' follows the Bible, specifically Exodus, where Moses engineers through God a way to liberate the Hebrew slaves from their Egyptian masters and lead them to the 'Promised Land.' The second part, 'The Story,' relates the Ten Commandments to two brothers in present-day life who differ in their beliefs, led by a pious mother. One brother, Dan McTavish (Rod La Rocque), is an atheist who breaks every commandment, with dire consequences. The other, John (Richard Dix), follows the Bible to a tee.
DeMille set out to film the Biblical episodes larger in scope than even D. W. Griffith's 1916 Babylonian sequences in his 'Intolerance.' Reconstructing a massive ancient Egyptian setting, complete with large buildings and sphinx-like statues in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes north of Los Angeles, DeMille oversaw an army of 1,600 designers and construction workers. For three months the almost 2,500 member production crew, including extras, cooks and support staff, were spent in the desert-like surroundings filming the Prologue.
The expenses were escalating so fast that it's studio, Paramount Pictures and president Adolph Zukor cabled DeMille demanding he pull up stakes and return to Hollywood The director responded, "I cannot and will not make pictures with a yardstick. What do you want me to do? Stop now and release it as The Five Commandments?"
As the studio's financial backers began to get queasy and withdraw further finances, DeMille was able to get a personal loan from one of the founders of Bank of America to invest $500,000 to complete the movie. The investment proved to be a good one since the $1.4 million budgeted movie garnered over $4 million at the box office, an astronomical return, becoming Paramount's highest grossing film for the studio's next 25 years.
Once filming wrapped up in the dunes, DeMille, short on money and not wanting other directors to use his elaborate sets to compare their work with his, decided to blow up some of the larger structures while bulldozing the entire place under sand. Archeologists in 1983 found the site buried underneath the dunes. Because the western snowy plover nests in the area, it's virtually impossible to conduct an archeological dig for any length of time. Some items, including one of the sphinx statues, have been recovered, but the oldest film set still in existence remains under tons of sand.
DeMille was one of the earliest proponents of the two-strip Technicolor look and used the company's film for some of the scenes. Unfortunately, the preserved prints, including the one DeMille himself had personally kept, do not retain the color sequences. One stretch of color footage was of the parting of the Red Sea. DeMille's special effects technicians were able to realistically show how the waters were separated by lining up blocks of blue gelatin and heating them up until they melted. Slowly turning to liquid, the gelatin footage was reversed with ocean waves superimposed next to the blocks. The effect created the illusion of the sea parting while the dry ocean bed allowed the thousands of refugees to walk to the Red Sea's other side.
"The Ten Commandments" became the first of what film historians consider DeMille's Biblical trilogy, 1927 'King of Kings,' and 1932 'The Sign of the Cross.' DeMille would later remake "The Ten Commandments" in 1956, dropping the modern day story to concentrate solely on Moses. Several of the sequences in the updated version duplicate almost shot-for-shot the 1923 edition, showing how much DeMille admired his younger work.
DeMille was getting tired of directing bedroom farces of manners that were not attracting the number of viewers to the theaters as they had been in the past. He solicited ideas for his next film in early 1923 by holding a contest for his loyal fans to offer their opinions on what his next movie should be about. One suggestion from a Lansing, Michigan, respondent hit a cord straight to the director's heart: "You cannot break the 'Ten Commandments-they will break you." Voila, thought DeMille, that's it. He immediately teamed up with his favorite screenwriter, Jeanie MacPherson, to compose a treatment, divided into two parts.
'The Prologue' follows the Bible, specifically Exodus, where Moses engineers through God a way to liberate the Hebrew slaves from their Egyptian masters and lead them to the 'Promised Land.' The second part, 'The Story,' relates the Ten Commandments to two brothers in present-day life who differ in their beliefs, led by a pious mother. One brother, Dan McTavish (Rod La Rocque), is an atheist who breaks every commandment, with dire consequences. The other, John (Richard Dix), follows the Bible to a tee.
DeMille set out to film the Biblical episodes larger in scope than even D. W. Griffith's 1916 Babylonian sequences in his 'Intolerance.' Reconstructing a massive ancient Egyptian setting, complete with large buildings and sphinx-like statues in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes north of Los Angeles, DeMille oversaw an army of 1,600 designers and construction workers. For three months the almost 2,500 member production crew, including extras, cooks and support staff, were spent in the desert-like surroundings filming the Prologue.
The expenses were escalating so fast that it's studio, Paramount Pictures and president Adolph Zukor cabled DeMille demanding he pull up stakes and return to Hollywood The director responded, "I cannot and will not make pictures with a yardstick. What do you want me to do? Stop now and release it as The Five Commandments?"
As the studio's financial backers began to get queasy and withdraw further finances, DeMille was able to get a personal loan from one of the founders of Bank of America to invest $500,000 to complete the movie. The investment proved to be a good one since the $1.4 million budgeted movie garnered over $4 million at the box office, an astronomical return, becoming Paramount's highest grossing film for the studio's next 25 years.
Once filming wrapped up in the dunes, DeMille, short on money and not wanting other directors to use his elaborate sets to compare their work with his, decided to blow up some of the larger structures while bulldozing the entire place under sand. Archeologists in 1983 found the site buried underneath the dunes. Because the western snowy plover nests in the area, it's virtually impossible to conduct an archeological dig for any length of time. Some items, including one of the sphinx statues, have been recovered, but the oldest film set still in existence remains under tons of sand.
DeMille was one of the earliest proponents of the two-strip Technicolor look and used the company's film for some of the scenes. Unfortunately, the preserved prints, including the one DeMille himself had personally kept, do not retain the color sequences. One stretch of color footage was of the parting of the Red Sea. DeMille's special effects technicians were able to realistically show how the waters were separated by lining up blocks of blue gelatin and heating them up until they melted. Slowly turning to liquid, the gelatin footage was reversed with ocean waves superimposed next to the blocks. The effect created the illusion of the sea parting while the dry ocean bed allowed the thousands of refugees to walk to the Red Sea's other side.
"The Ten Commandments" became the first of what film historians consider DeMille's Biblical trilogy, 1927 'King of Kings,' and 1932 'The Sign of the Cross.' DeMille would later remake "The Ten Commandments" in 1956, dropping the modern day story to concentrate solely on Moses. Several of the sequences in the updated version duplicate almost shot-for-shot the 1923 edition, showing how much DeMille admired his younger work.