The Ten Commandments is a 1956 American biblical epic film produced, directed, and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, shot in VistaVision (color by Technicolor), and released by Paramount Pictures. Based on the Bible's Book of Exodus and other sources, it dramatizes the story of the life of Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of his real brethren, the enslaved Hebrews, and thereafter leads the Exodus to Mount Sinai, where he receives the titular commandments from God. The film stars Charlton Heston in the lead role, Yul Brynner as Rameses, Anne Baxter as Nefretiri, Edward G. Robinson as Dathan, Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora, Debra Paget as Lilia, and John Derek as Joshua; and features Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Sethi I, Nina Foch as Bithiah, Martha Scott as Yochabel, Judith Anderson as Memnet, and Vincent Price as Baka, among others.
First announced in 1952, The Ten Commandments is a remake of the prologue of DeMille's 1923 silent film of the same title. Four screenwriters, three art directors, and five costume designers worked on the film. In 1954, it was filmed on location in Egypt, Mount Sinai, and the Sinai Peninsula, featuring one of the largest exterior sets ever created for a motion picture. In 1955, the interior sets were constructed on Paramount's Hollywood soundstages. The original roadshow version included an onscreen introduction by DeMille and was released to cinemas in the United States on November 8, 1956, and, at the time of its release, was the most expensive film ever made. It was DeMille's most successful work, his first widescreen film, his fourth biblical production, and his final directorial effort before his death in 1959.
In 1957, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (John P. Fulton, A.S.C.). DeMille won the Foreign Language Press Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director. Charlton Heston was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama). Yul Brynner won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor. Heston, Anne Baxter, and Yvonne De Carlo won Laurel Awards for Best Dramatic Actor, 5th Best Dramatic Actress, and 3rd Best Supporting Actress, respectively. It is also one of the most financially successful films ever made, grossing approximately $122.7 million at the box office during its initial release; it was the most successful film of 1956 and the second-highest-grossing film of the decade. According to Guinness World Records, in terms of theatrical exhibition, it is the eighth most successful film of all-time when the box office gross is adjusted for inflation.
In 1999, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten Top Ten"—the best ten films in ten American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. The film was listed as the tenth best film in the epic genre. The film has aired annually on U.S. network television in prime time during the Passover/Easter season since 1973.
Plot After hearing the prophecy of a Hebrew deliverer who would free the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, Pharaoh Rameses I of Egypt orders the death of all newborn Hebrew males. Yochabel saves her infant son by setting him adrift in a basket on the Nile. Rameses I's recently widowed daughter Bithiah finds the basket and decides to adopt the boy by naming him Moses, even though her servant Memnet recognizes the child's Hebrew heritage.
Prince Moses grows up to become a successful general, winning a war against Ethiopia and establishing an alliance. Moses falls in love with Princess Nefretiri, but she is betrothed to whomever Rameses' son, Pharaoh Sethi, chooses to become the next Pharaoh. While building a city for Sethi's jubilee, Moses meets the stonecutter Joshua, who tells him of the Hebrew God. Moses saves an elderly woman from being crushed, not knowing that she is his biological mother, Yochabel, and he reprimands the master builder, Baka. Moses reforms the treatment of slaves on the project, but Prince Rameses, Moses's adoptive brother and Sethi's son, charges him with planning insurrection. Moses says he is merely making the slaves more productive, and after demonstrating the results, Sethi declares him the next Pharaoh.
Nefretiri learns from Memnet that Moses is the son of Hebrew slaves. She kills Memnet, but reveals the story to Moses after he finds the piece of Levite cloth he was wrapped in as a baby, which Memnet had kept. Moses follows Bithiah to Yochabel's house, where he meets his biological mother, brother Aaron, and sister Miriam. Moses learns more about the slaves by working with them. Nefretiri urges him to return to the palace, so that he may help his people when he becomes pharaoh, to which he agrees after he completes a final task. Moses saves Joshua from death by killing Baka, telling Joshua that he, too, is Hebrew. The confession is witnessed by the Hebrew overseer Dathan, who then reports to Rameses. After being arrested, Moses explains that he is not the Deliverer, but would free the slaves if he could. Sethi reluctantly declares Rameses his sole heir, and Rameses banishes Moses to the desert. Moses learns of the death of his mother.
Moses makes his way across the desert to a well in Midian. After defending seven sisters from Amalekites, Moses is housed with the girls' father Jethro, a Madianite sheikh, who worships the God of Abraham. Moses marries Jethro's eldest daughter Sephora. Later, he finds Joshua, who escaped from the hard labor imposed on the Hebrews in Egypt. While herding, Moses sees the burning bush on the summit of Mount Sinai and hears the voice of God. At God's command, Moses returns to Egypt to free the Hebrews.
Moses comes before Rameses, now Pharaoh Rameses II, to win the slaves' freedom, turning his staff into a cobra. Jannes performs the same trick with his staves, but Moses's snake swallows his. Rameses prohibits straw from being provided to Hebrews to make bricks. Nefretiri rescues Moses from being stoned to death by the Hebrews wherein he reveals that he is married. To convince Rameses to oblige his wishes, Moses gets God to initiate plagues against Egypt. Moses turns the River Nile to blood at a festival of Khnum, and brings burning hail down upon Pharaoh's palace. Moses warns him that the next plague will be summoned by Pharaoh himself. Enraged at the plagues, Rameses orders that all first-born sons of Hebrews will die, but a green cloud of death instead kills all the first-born sons of Egypt, including Rameses' and Nefretiri's child.
Despairing at the loss of his heir, Rameses gives in to Moses' demands and frees the Hebrews, who begin the Exodus from Egypt. Bithiah reunites with Moses and goes with the Hebrews. After being taunted by Nefretiri, Rameses takes his chariots and pursues the Hebrews to the Red Sea. Moses uses God's help to stop the Egyptians with a pillar of fire, and parts the Red Sea. After the Hebrews make it across to safety, Moses releases the walls of water, drowning the Egyptian army. A devastated Rameses returns empty-handed to Nefretiri, stating that he now acknowledges Moses's god as God.
Moses again ascends the mountain with Joshua. He receives the Ten Commandments created by God in two stone tablets. Meanwhile, Dathan exploits the people to gain power, claiming that Moses is dead and urging a reluctant Aaron to construct a golden calf idol. A decadent orgy is held by most of the Hebrews. Dathan plans to sacrifice to the calf Lilia, Joshua's girlfriend who was Dathan's sex slave before Joshua's return. After God informs them of the Hebrews' sins, Moses and Joshua descend from the mountain. Enraged at his own people's betrayal of God, Moses deems the Hebrews unworthy and throws the tablets at the calf, destroying it and sending Dathan and his cohorts into the opening earth below. The remaining Hebrews are forced to wander 40 years in the wilderness as punishment for their sins. Moses leads the Hebrews towards Canaan, though he cannot enter himself because he disobeyed God by the Waters of Strife (Meribah). Moses ascends Mount Nebo after charging Joshua to lead the Hebrews, and the film ends with a shot of the Ten Commandments tablets, glowing with fire, over the words, "So it was written[,] So it shall be done."
Cast Spelling differences exist between the original screenplay characters and the actual biblical/historical persons the role is based upon. The screenplay character Nefretiri is based on the historical/biblical Nefertari. The character Pharaoh Sethi I is based on historical/biblical Pharaoh Seti I. And the character of Prince Rameses / Pharaoh Rameses II is not an inaccurate spelling; however Ramesses—a.k.a. Ramesses the Great—is the preferred translation.
Production Development
In July 1951, while he was working on his circus film The Greatest Show on Earth, producer-director Cecil B. DeMille chose Homer's Odyssey as the subject of his next epic. Several weeks later, he announced he was going to make a film about the Book of Esther, but then he changed his mind and said he was planning a new film about Helen of Troy, which he eventually canceled. For more than twenty years and especially after World War II, DeMille had received letters from people worldwide who asked him to make a new version of his 1923 silent film The Ten Commandments because the world "needs a reminder, they said, of the Law of God", which "is the essential bedrock of human freedom." DeMille talked about the idea with his staff and they initially considered producing it as a modern story with a biblical prologue, like the original film. A suggestion was to have the contemporary protagonist be an honest politician struggling with "forces aligned against him" and show through that conflict the effects of keeping or breaking the Ten Commandments. DeMille discarded the present-day storyline because he kept thinking about the first film's biblical section, which was "still not dated". Another early concept was to film the story of the Exodus, led by Moses, with interconnected subplots involving Israelites whose lives reflect each of the Ten Commandments. DeMille wrote that he thought the final choice—to let the biblical story "speak for itself"—was the "soundest". He said the biblical account was "timeless" and "timely", and that when "Moses led his people to Mount Sinai, they learned, as the world today must learn, that true freedom is freedom under God."
After The Greatest Show on Earth was released, DeMille went to Paramount Pictures to discuss his next film with the studio's executives, including Barney Balaban and Adolph Zukor. He had already made up his mind to direct a new version of The Ten Commandments that would incorporate Moses' life as an Egyptian prince. He had to "sell" the idea to them and, although only Zukor and Y. Frank Freeman championed it, all accepted it. Some Paramount businessmen were not too keen about another biblical film, and one of those even questioned the film's title, saying "You won't call it The Ten Commandments, of course." When he heard this, Zukor leapt from his seat and made it clear that there would be no other title for the film but that one.
In June 1952, DeMille formally informed the press that his next production would be a Technicolor remake of his successful silent film The Ten Commandments (1923). From the beginning, his plan was to produce the film on a "lavish scale" with "a cast of outstanding stars" and a budget that would allow it "to possess the quality and spectacular values that have earned for DeMille the title of 'Hollywood's master showman.'" DeMille explained why he decided to revisit Moses' story: