The Ten Commandments (1923)

Director: Cecil B DeMille
Starring: Theodore Roberts, Charles de Rochefort, Estelle Taylor

Synopsis:
An account of how the Ten Commandments was passed down to the Hebrew nation and their application in the present day.

Impressions:
I was basically expecting this to be the same film that DeMille brought to us in the 50s, but this is actually two stories. The first is a truncated account of Exodus running from the eve of the Tenth Plague up to the golden calf incident and the breaking of the first set of stone tablets, while the second is a modern-day morality tale applying the Ten Commandments to a Goofus and Gallant-esque pair of brothers. The former is stunning for its ambition and scope with huge sets and hundreds of extras, presaging what DeMille would accomplish in the remake. The latter is rather maudlin but accomplishes what its sets out to do. There's a little bit of two-strip Technicolor used, but it seems more like a novelty here, compared to it being used to better effect in DeMille's later King of Kings. Cinema as an art form was still finding its footing, so the film will look a bit rough to the modern viewer, but it's still worth seeing, especially as a piece of film history.

Rating:
Watch It