quote:

---

Originally posted by Probable:
Everyone already said what I was going to!

---

Me too!

DeMille was a conservative, one who almost had all the leftists kicked out of the director's guild during the McCarthy era. His papers are held at Brigham Young University and the curator who deals with hundreds of boxes of material that DeMille saved throughout his life said that DeMille had the most enormous ego to think all this would be important to somebody.

The biblical epics of the 50s were a way to put sex on screen and still get around the Catholic Legion of Decency and other groups. It's hard to condemn a costume drama for it's buxom babes and passionate affairs when they're verbatim from the holy books. Sure of all the stories you could tell about King David, it's his adulterous affair with Bathsheba that's made into a movie, but that's Hollywood.

And one of the delights of The Ten Commandments (even if it makes the film harder to take seriously) is watching Anne Baxter in heat in nearly every scene.

But what is also interesting about the biblical epics, and I'm thinking about The Ten Commandments, King of Kings, and The Fall of the Roman Empire in particular, is that they also have a lot to do with politics, with what kind of leadership is best for the masses.

The DVD includes a coming attractions trailer that runs 9 minutes with DeMille talking about the film in a study very much like the one Lowell Thomas speaks from at the beginning of the Cinerama films or Edward R. Murrow does at the start of Around the World in 80 Days. And in this wonderful trailer, DeMille makes it more explicit than he does in the film itself that the story is about the conflict of rule by Divine Law and that of dictators.

Yet the thing which is a DeMille signature is the need of the masses to have a special and charismatic leader (not unlike say DeMille) to keep things together. When Moses and Joshua leave the people to obtain the law, it's not too long before the people are crying, "Who will lead us?" as if they couldn't figure this out on their own. One of the key moments in the film in this regard comes when Joshua tells Moses to stand at the highest point so people crossing the Red Sea will see him and be encouraged/inspired to continue without panic.

Bernstein's score is wonderful, no that's too slight, it's a masterpiece. Interestingly though, although this score and The Man with the Golden Arm put Bernstein "on the map", he doesn't seem too fond of this one and considers more subtle scores like To Kill A Mockingbird to be his great achievements.

I do believe that the trumpets referred to in previous posts are ram's horns, an ancient instrument still used in services in Hebrew synogogues.

Originally, Victor Young as set to score The Ten Commandments as he had most of DeMille's previous films. Young must have known he was in poor health because he turned the score down saying, "If I did this, DeMille would work me so hard it would kill me." As it is, Young died anyway in the middle of scoring Sam Fuller's China Gate at around the same time.

The score was issued on Dot records originally. It was re-recorded for its first release but the version there is very close to the original. Bernstein then re-recorded it again at some point in the 70s, in a version which is very far from the original but which is still enjoyable in many ways (for instance, the Egyptian dance is given an new arrangement which I prefer to the film and Dot versions). The Dot version wound up on a Japanese CD and original tracks wound up on a bootleg. The 70s version is available on an MCA CD. A suite from the score was included in Bernstein's CD for Denon records, Bernstein by Bernstein. I actually think any of the versions are satisfactory, this music being so good that it's pretty hard to mangle it (though replacing the theremin for a synth instrument on the 70s re-record comes pretty close to doing so).

quote:

---

Interestingly though, although this score and The Man with the Golden Arm put Bernstein "on the map", he doesn't seem too fond of this one and considers more subtle scores like To Kill A Mockingbird to be his great achievements.

---

and he would be right. Mockingbird is evry bit as much a masterpiece as Ten Commandments.