About The Ten Commandments (1923)
The story behind the film
Cecil B. DeMille is famous for the 1956 Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston — but more than thirty years earlier, he made this silent original, and it was one of the biggest hits of the 1920s.
The idea came from the public. In 1922 DeMille's publicist arranged a contest with the Los Angeles Times, offering $1,000 for the best suggestion for his next film. Thousands of letters arrived. The winner, F. C. Nelson of Lansing, Michigan, opened his letter with the line "You cannot break the Ten Commandments — they will break you." Several other entrants had also suggested the Commandments, and DeMille shared the prize among them.
Screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson, DeMille's longtime collaborator, devised an unusual two-part structure. The first part is a biblical prologue telling the story of the Exodus: the last plagues of Egypt, the flight of the Israelites, the parting of the Red Sea, Moses receiving the Commandments on Mount Sinai and the worship of the golden calf. The second part is a modern drama set in 1920s San Francisco about two brothers: John, a carpenter who lives by the Commandments, and Dan, who openly defies them, becomes a corrupt building contractor and cuts corners on the concrete of a new cathedral — with disastrous results.
Cast & crew
- Produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille; written by Jeanie MacPherson
- Theodore Roberts as Moses
- Charles de Rochefort as Rameses
- Estelle Taylor as Miriam
- Richard Dix as John McTavish
- Rod La Rocque as Dan McTavish
- Leatrice Joy as Mary Leigh
- Edythe Chapman as Martha McTavish
- Nita Naldi as Sally Lung
- Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Why it's worth watching
The biblical prologue is pure spectacle, staged on a scale that astonished audiences in 1923: huge Egyptian gates, rows of sphinxes, chariots charging across the desert, and crowds of extras. Several scenes were filmed in early two-colour Technicolor, and the parting of the Red Sea remains a marvel of silent-era trickery. The modern story is a melodrama in DeMille's typical style — moralising, but also lively, glamorous and occasionally lurid — and it's fascinating to see how the director tied an ancient story to the Jazz Age.
Watching it alongside the 1956 remake is especially rewarding: DeMille reused ideas, set designs and even some shot compositions from this version.
Fun facts
- The Exodus scenes were filmed at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes on California's Central Coast, on what was described as the largest exterior set ever built, with 35-foot pharaoh statues and 21 sphinxes.
- The set was abandoned in the dunes after filming. In 2012 archaeologists uncovered the head of one of the prop sphinxes, and a second, better-preserved sphinx was later excavated.
- The walls of water in the Red Sea crossing were created by filming a slab of jelly sliced in two, combined with live-action footage of the Israelites.
- The Ten Commandments was the highest-grossing film of 1923.
Public-domain status
The Ten Commandments was released in 1923. Its US copyright term ended after 95 years, and the film entered the US public domain on January 1, 2019. DeMille's 1956 remake is a separate work and is not shown here. See "Rights & source" below.