The Ten Commandments
{4/5} “A city is built of brick, Pharoah. The strong make many, the starving make few. The dead make none.”
In order to escape death, when Moses is a baby he’s sent off in a basket down the river. Bithia, the Pharoah’s sister, has no baby and raises Moses as her own son. Moses grows up with Rameses, the son of the Pharoah — the Pharoah gives them each tasks to do in order to decide who will succeed him as Pharoah. The kind-hearted Moses has a very different way of dealing with things than the harsh Rameses. When Moses discovers that he’s actually a Hebrew, the race the Egyptians have enslaved, he decides he must leave the palace and seek a new life. When some of the Hebrews start calling Moses “the deliverer” — the one who will deliver them from the Egyptians — he can’t believe it.
The Ten Commandments was released in 1956.
Regardless of your views on its religious or historical nature, it’s an impressive movie.
It’s a production of epic proportions with a time of 3 hours 40 minutes, and a cast of thousands — people and animals.
The dialogue is stylized but delivered very well by the actors. It takes an actor with a certain Shakespearean quality to deliver the lines. I’m not sure how many actors today could pull off the roles of Moses and Rameses, played so well by Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner.
Despite the fact that I knew what was going to happen it kept my interest for the entire running time.
Even if, like me, you don’t watch a lot of older movies you might want to check this one out.
The dramatic and slightly repetitive music is by Elmer Bernstein (The Great Escape).
Charlton Heston (Planet of the Apes) plays Moses and Yul Brynner (Westworld) plays Rameses.
Two actors I didn’t recognize: Edward G. Robinson (Soylent Green) as Dathan and Vincent Price (Edward Scissorhands) as Baka.
The movie was directed by Cecil B. DeMille (The Greatest Show on Earth). DeMille had previously made a silent version of The Ten Commandments in 1923.