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Average Rating:
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Hollywood Spectacular
Latter-day reviewers have criticized the movie for its campy and overwrought style, but it does present one of the events of the Bible and history in a spectacular way.
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Traditional Classic
This was Cecil B. De Mille's last film as a director. De Mille's traditional style of filmmaking and story telling is elegant, larger-than-life and rather elegiac and exactly suited for the enormous task of bringing this spectacle to the screen. Charlton Heston gives an excellent and powerfully dramatic performance as Moses. Yul Brynner, who approaches his role with style and confidence, is the prince who outmaneuvers Moses to the Egyptian throne in one of the best performances of his career. Supporting Heston and Brynner is a diverse and powerful cast of actors and performers. John Derek is memorable as Joshua the stone cutter. Anne Baxter is Nefretiri who yearns for the love of Moses. Cedric Hardwicke is an agreeable and levelheaded Pharaoh Sethi. Edward G. Robinson is the traitor to his people memorable for constructing the false idol golden calf. Vincent Price is the villainous and diabolically likable Baka. The beautiful Debra Paget is Baka's slave girl Lilia. Yvonne De Carlo gives a very thoughtful performance as Sephora, Moses' earthly love. John Carradine is Aaron. Woody Strode can be seen as the King of Ethiopia. Laboriously produced, Cecil B. De Mille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS looks as though it was filmed and acted in a style more suitable to the early days of Hollywood. But that is a very positive quality. The film takes biblical events and turns them into Hollywood's version of history quite effectively. This style of filmmaking brings the larger-than-life scope of the Old Testament to the screen preserving the mystery and awesome power of the concept of a monotheistic divinity. One very effective feature of this film that reinforces this concept are the unearthly looking special effects, which are so eerily disturbing and beyond our comprehension that they truly approach a successful vision of the universal power of God. These distinctively unique special effects by the innovative John P. Fulton are essential to the telling of this story. Elmer Bernstein's rousing and inspirational score is brilliantly moving as it reinforces the vision that De Mille has created. Interestingly, in the earlier parts of this film De Mille shows us the construction of an Egyptian empire. We are witness to and experience the ingenuity of man to engineer and create such mammoth structures. But De Mille through the use of these special effects wipes all this out and shows the futility of man's efforts to subjugate other men when divine intervention prevails. This is such a brilliantly visual film that it still evokes awe and wonder to this day.
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One of my Favorite Movies
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS is a film that will inspire all. There is good and evil present in all forms of society. This film is good old fashioned film making with an important message about the human spirit: it flaws, weaknesses and triumphs. Yul Brynner is very good.
