DeMille's first attempt at the story of Moses has more in common with such other silent films contrasting the ancient past to stories of today, than it does to his later epic retelling of the story. Griffith's "Intolerance" 7 years earlier had intercut several stories of sin and violence to show that the more man changes, the more he stays the same; Fritz Lang's "Destiny" and Carl Dreyer's "Leaves from Satan's Book" (both 1921) also worked out biblical themes in both ancient and modern contexts. All four directors were at one point or another quite serious Christians, though DeMille seems to have been the most obsessive in his faith, and certainly his many films on Biblical themes are often more obvious and blunt in their attempts at pedagogy.Which is not to say that "The Ten Commandments" is just a lesson in "thou shalt nots"; but it is throughout informed of a very deep, and perhaps naive faith that the stories of the past are alive and exactly transferable to the lives we have today. In this case, we see a man break essentially every commandment in his quest for personal greatness, destroying in the process his own life and those of many around him, including his own mother. DeMille doesn't intercut multiple story lines like his predecessors, but rather uses the Biblical story as a 50-minute "prologue" to one feature-length story taking place in modern-day Los Angeles.It's fascinating to watch the film if you've just watched the later version, as I did; the prologue is almost exactly the same as the last 50 minutes of the '56 version, picking up in the middle of the plagues that Moses has set upon Egypt. Like the later film, only the killing of the first-born is given significant play, and the majority of this section is given over to the flight from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea (jello!) and destruction of the pursuing Egyptians, and the creation of the Ten Commandments and Moses' fury at the idolators. It's all very well done, in many respects more thrilling and powerful than in the later film, with many scenes that DeMille obviously liked enough to re-do almost shot-for-shot - the flight of the Israelites from the Egyptian city, and in particular the shot of Moses standing in front of them exhorting them to flee are good examples. Theodore Roberts was 62 when the film was made and looks a bit crazy and obsessive - he certainly feels more like the older Moses to me than Charlton Heston, though Charles de Rochefort doesn't leave a huge impression as Rameses. All in all, it's quite a spectacle and segues nicely into...The modern-day story, of two carpenter/architect brothers, one ambitious and unscrupulous and the other honest and devoted to their saintly, Bible-reading mother, and how they vie for the love of a vagrant girl who comes to their doorstep, is obviously freighted with the weight of the prologue: the two brothers quarrel over God, there is honoring and not honoring of the parent, coveting of the neighbor's (or brother's) wife, stealing, etc. The central theme couldn't be more obviously stated as they build a cathedral, which ultimately collapses due to the bad brother's cheap materials, killing someone dear. Every commandment gets tested and broken at one point or another, but what's fascinating is how seamlessly they're all woven into a relatively simple story and how DeMille refuses to cast the "bad" brother as completely evil, or the "good" brother as entirely strong and virtuous. Only the mother comes across as something of a caricature. Nicely lit and shot throughout - the rain sequence where the girl first comes to the home of the family is very real and moving, and only the scenes involving the unscrupulous brother's mistress seem at all overwrought. This is overall a more graceful and disciplined film than the later version, or any of DeMille's work that I've seen so far.

This was another Biblical epic from the Silent era which I had long wanted to check out; even so, I had owned the DVD (accompanying the more popular 1956 version of the same events, from the same showman director no less, and which has received countless viewings from yours truly) for some time before I finally got to it. As with the later NOAH'S ARK (1928), virtually watched simultaneously, it seems that film-makers of the time were unsure of the appeal of such religious epics, so that they had to present them within the context of a modern story; still, De Mille's THE KING OF KINGS (a milestone in itself for being the first and, for a time, only picture to show Jesus' face) preceded that Michael Curtiz work by a year and it was set exclusively in the time of Christ. In this case, only the first 50 minutes or so are dedicated to the familiar tale involving Moses (needless to say, the dull Theodore Roberts is no match for the stoic Charlton Heston in the remake): the exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, the writing of the tablets and the Golden Calf; these are clearly heavily streamlined in comparison with the almost 4-hour long 1956 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and, in spite of their obvious care, gargantuan scale and excellent special effects, can feel unsatisfying in that respect...especially when the parallel story is so hokey, unnecessarily inflated and, at the end of the day, somewhat ordinary! The latter sees a Bible-thumping matriarch (which she proudly holds even when posing for a portrait), her two sons and the girl who comes between them: one of the boys (played by Richard Dix) is righteous – and, as his mother claims, engaged in a skill (carpentry) which has produced some notable exponents (alluding naturally to Christ himself) – while the other mocks religion and vows to become somebody by his own merits. Eventually, we find him as a top contractor and, perhaps to make amends, takes it upon himself to build a church; however, to cut costs, he reduces the amount of cement required to make the concrete, with the result that the walls are weak and liable to collapse at any time (coincidentally, the very previous day I watched a film in which a character had faced a similar dilemma – GIVE US THIS DAY aka Christ IN CONCRETE [1949]): this ruse is discovered by Dix, appointed "boss-carpenter" on the project, and he confronts his brother…but, before anything can be done about it, the whole edifice falls on top of the mother who picks just that moment to visit the premises! The morally-corrupt sibling even forsakes his wife (the destitute girl they had taken in and whom Dix relinquished on his account) for an Asian temptress, whom he eventually kills (the only commandment, according to his spouse, not yet broken by him); in the end, the boy gets his come-uppance and Dix can reclaim his lady. While the two sections may seem to jell better than those in NOAH'S ARK, the overall achievement is a lesser one – and not just to it, but THE KING OF KINGS (by the way, Christ makes a 'cameo' appearance here towards the end!) and, most importantly, the later version…if still quite worthwhile in itself.

The Ten Commandments marks the beginning of the second wave of the Hollywood epic. Modelled on the contemporary/ancient parallel storytelling of Intolerance – the crowning achievement of the first wave – and its subject matter decided by a poll of cinema-goers, this is among the most significant and typically DeMillean of DeMille's pictures.DeMille had first coupled a historical tale with a modern day framing story in 1916's Joan the Woman, and even during the years when the historical feature was out of fashion (approximately 1918 – 1921) he several times added a little metaphorical foray into the past to his contemporary dramas, such as Male and Female and Manslaughter. Here, it is still the modern day narrative which makes up the bulk of the picture's 130-odd minutes, and yet it is the spectacular biblical prologue that everyone remembers.DeMille had always had a talent for directing crowd scenes, giving inspiring pep talks to the mass whilst giving specific directions to the individuals. Here he works with the biggest group of extras he had ever handled, and yet he has lost none of his touch. He gives character to the multitude by focusing on a number of individuals within it, and yet when he pulls back to show the whole crowd you can still see the attention to detail, with a hundred different things going on. The stupendous sets also make an impact in themselves, but DeMille is shrewd enough to reveal them gradually, and places them squarely in the context of being symbolic of evil. The pharaoh's palace may be impressive, but DeMille ensures that the works of God – the pillar of fire, the parting of the red sea, the lightning on Sinai – are more so. Oddly, he could be accused of doing the opposite in his 1956 remake, in which the Egyptian city is absolutely awe-inspiring, whereas the special effects representing acts of God are somewhat pathetic even for the day, and certainly less effective than those in 1923. But DeMille had changed a lot by that time.In contrast to the prologue, the contemporary story is somewhat lacklustre. It has much in common with other DeMille dramas from around this period, although it is pretty mediocre by that standard. Particularly jarring is the overuse of intertitles. Five years earlier DeMille had been a master of purely visual narrative, and the titles were only there when absolutely necessary. As time went by however, as DeMille had become more pious and his screenwriter Jeanie Macpherson had become more pretentious, so had the photoplays become more wordy. All the better for preaching with, as far as self-appointed messenger-of-God DeMille was concerned, but his pictures began to lack the grace and smoothness they had once had.With scenes fragmented into smaller pieces, and characters unable to open their mouths without a superfluous title spelling their words out to the audience, the acting also suffers. Richard Dix, Rod La Rocque, Leatrice Joy and Nita Naldi are all adequate performers, but none of them really gets time or space to emote as much as they ought to for the story. Nevertheless, DeMille was still a master of the powerful, iconic image, and there are enough memorable shots here to keep things interesting. Among the standouts are Nita Naldi's hands emerging from a tear in a sack, the straight-up shot in the lift as Leatrice Joy ascends and Naldi ripping the curtain off its hooks, nearly forty years before the almost identical shot in Hitchcock's Psycho. It is images like this which reign supreme in DeMille's cinema, and it is from around this point on that they become more important than the credibility of the story or the actors.DeMille's Ten Commandments proved to be highly influential. Other studios got to work on their own superproductions, the western would become epic with The Iron Horse, and even Douglas Fairbanks next picture, The Thief of Bagdad, was steeped in DeMillean grandeur. Further afield, UFA studios in Germany and Abel Gance in France were also working on the principle that big is beautiful. Ten Commandments indicated the future for DeMille himself as well. Not only was it the first of the pictures that would secure his legacy as the ultimate biblical filmmaker, but the fact that the prologue is absolutely breathtaking and the contemporary drama lacks bite, hints towards his eventually becoming a director purely of epics. It's also rather telling that he loved the Old Testament God of plagues and smiting, because that is probably more or less how DeMille saw himself. He hammered home his messages with the spectacular and the incredible. A shock-and-awe filmmaker preaching the word of a shock-and-awe God.

Today,all his epics ("ten commandments" 1 and 2,"sign of the cross" "Samson and Delilah" ...° have worn remarkably well.Like many people ,I saw the 1956 version well before the silent one.The prologue (which is very long for a prologue) has a plot similar to the 1956 version from the plagues to the golden calf orgy.Even the Parting of the Red Sea (and it's quite impressive for 1923!) and the writing of the Holy Tablets are here (it looks more like some kind of mystic firework here).As for the orgy,it's simply better than the color version.That said I like that latter version best,because the gap between the biblical tale and the modern one makes that the two parts do not hang very well,in spite of a brilliant transition : Moses and his people saga suddenly segues into a mother reading the Bible to her sons.The second part will deal with the story of two brothers,one of whom trying to break these "fusty" commandments and not be broken by them. There are interesting parallels: the workers on the building site and the slaves working for pharaoh on the pyramids,the hero who ,like "pharaoh's tribe ,is drowned in the tide" .Little by little,the film becomes slowly but inexorably overtly Christian: the momma hints to carpenters,nice carpenters,there's a short return to biblical times but depicting a scene of Jesus' s life and unlike the bad woman who became a leper in the prologue,salvation is around the corner for the evil millionaire's wife.Lines from St Matthew ("he gained the world but lost his soul") add to this feeling a redemption.Despite the reservations expressed above,De Mille was a storyteller extraordinaire,who equaled D.W .Griffith .Thou shalt not overlook him.