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The Sign of the Cross (film)

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For other uses, see Sign of the Cross (disambiguation).

The Sign of the Cross
The sign of cross.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Cecil B. DeMille
Produced by
Cecil B. DeMille
Screenplay by
Waldemar Young
Sidney Buchman

Based on
The Sign of the Cross
 by Wilson Barrett
Starring
Fredric March
Elissa Landi
Claudette Colbert
Charles Laughton

Music by
Rudolph G. Kopp
Cinematography
Karl Struss
Edited by
Anne Bauchens

Production
 company

Paramount Pictures

Distributed by
Paramount Pictures

Release dates

November 30, 1932 (USA)


Running time
 125 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$650,000
The Sign of the Cross (1932) is a pre-Code epic film released by Paramount Pictures, produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Waldemar Young and Sidney Buchman, and based on the original 1895 play by Wilson Barrett.
Both play and film have a strong resemblance to the novel Quo Vadis, and like the novel, take place in ancient Rome during the reign of Nero. The art direction and costume design were by Mitchell Leisen who also acted as assistant director. Karl Struss was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.[1]
The film stars Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Claudette Colbert, and Charles Laughton, with Ian Keith and Arthur Hohl. The film is the third and last in DeMille's biblical trilogy with The Ten Commandments (1923) and The King of Kings (1927). It was filmed in Fresno, California.


Contents  [hide]
1 Cast
2 Production notes
3 Editing for reissue after enforcement of the production code
4 Catholic Legion of Decency
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Cast[edit]
Fredric March as Marcus Superbus, prefect of Rome
Elissa Landi as Mercia
Claudette Colbert as Empress Poppaea
Charles Laughton as Emperor Nero
Ian Keith as Tigellinus
Arthur Hohl as Titus
Harry Beresford as Favius Fontelas
Tommy Conlon as Stephan
Ferdinand Gottschalk as Glabrio
Vivian Tobin as Dacia
William V. Mong as Licinius
Joyzelle Joyner as Ancaria
Richard Alexander as Viturius
Nat Pendleton as Strabo
Clarence Burton as Servillius
Harold Healy as Tybul
Robert Seiter as Philodemus
Charles Middleton as Tyros
Production notes[edit]
The famous scene in which Poppaea (Claudette Colbert) bathes in asses' milk took several days to shoot. DeMille announced to the press that real asses' milk was used; however, it was actually powdered cow's milk. After a few days under the hot lights, the milk turned sour, making it very unpleasant for Colbert to work in the stench.[2][3][4]
To save production expense during the Great Depression, existing sets were reused as well as costumes left over from the making of The Ten Commandments.[5] DeMille also attempted to provide out-of-work actors jobs as extras such as the crowd arena scenes.[5]
Editing for reissue after enforcement of the production code[edit]
As with many other Pre-Code films that were reissued after the Production Code was strictly enforced in 1934, this film has a history of censorship. In the original version, Marcus Superbus (Fredric March) is unsuccessful in his desire to seduce Mercia (Elisa Landi), an innocent Christian girl. He then urges Ancaria (Joyzelle Joyner) to perform the erotic "Dance of the Naked Moon" that will "warm her into life".[6] This "lesbian dance" was cut from the negative for a 1938 reissue, but was restored by MCA-Universal for its 1993 video release.[7] Some gladiatorial combat footage was also cut for the 1938 reissue, as were arena sequences involving naked women being attacked by crocodiles and a gorilla. These were also restored in 1993.[8]
DeMille himself supervised a new version for its 1944 rerelease. New footage with a World War II setting, featuring actor Stanley Ridges (who did not originally appear in the film) was added to make the film more topical. In the new prologue, a group of planes is seen flying over what was ancient Rome. The conversation of the soldiers in one of the planes leads directly into the film's original opening scene. The last few seconds of the edited version of the film showed the planes flying off into the distance, rather than simply fading out on the original closing scene of the movie.
For many years, this edited version was the only one available. The version now shown on Turner Classic Movies has been restored to the original 125 minute length by the UCLA Film and Television Archive with the help of the DeMille estate and Universal Pictures, which now owns most pre-1950 Paramount sound features.
Catholic Legion of Decency[edit]
The reaction of the Catholic Church in the United States to the content in this film and in Ann Vickers led to the 1934 formation of the Catholic Legion of Decency, an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Church, in motion pictures.[9]
See also[edit]
Nudity in film
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Awards for The Sign of the Cross, IMDB.com
2.Jump up ^ Landazuri@Turner Classic Movies.
3.Jump up ^ Kinsey Institute, The Sign of the Cross.
4.Jump up ^ Vieira 1999, p. 106.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Birchard 2004, pp. 251–255.
6.Jump up ^ Vieira 1999, pp. 106–109.
7.Jump up ^ Vieira 1999, p. 109.
8.Jump up ^ Vieira 1999, p. 110.
9.Jump up ^ Black 1996, pp. 162–164.
BibliographyBirchard, Robert S. (2004). Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2324-0. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
Black, Gregory D. (1996). Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56592-8. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
Vieira, Mark A. (1999). Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-4475-8.
Online sources"The Sign of the Cross". Sex in the Cinema. The Kinsey Institute. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
Landazuri, Margarita. "The Sign of the Cross". tcm.com. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Sign of the Cross (film).
The Sign of the Cross at the Internet Movie Database
The Sign of the Cross at the TCM Movie Database
The Sign of the Cross at AllMovie
The Sign of the Cross at Rotten Tomatoes
The Sign of the Cross at Virtual History


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille


Silent
The Squaw Man (1914) ·
 Brewster's Millions (1914) ·
 The Master Mind (1914) ·
 The Only Son (1914) ·
 The Man on the Box (1914) ·
 The Call of the North (1914) ·
 The Virginian (1914) ·
 What's His Name (1914) ·
 The Man from Home (1914) ·
 Rose of the Rancho (1914) ·
 The Ghost Breaker (1914) ·
 The Girl of the Golden West (1915) ·
 After Five (1915) ·
 The Warrens of Virginia (1915) ·
 The Unafraid (1915) ·
 The Captive (1915) ·
 The Wild Goose Chase (1915) ·
 The Arab (1915) ·
 Chimmie Fadden (1915) ·
 Kindling (1915) ·
 Carmen (1915) ·
 Chimmie Fadden Out West (1915) ·
 The Cheat (1915) ·
 Temptation (1915) ·
 The Golden Chance (1915) ·
 The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1916) ·
 The Heart of Nora Flynn (1916) ·
 Maria Rosa (1916) ·
 The Dream Girl (1916) ·
 Joan the Woman (1916) ·
 Lost and Won (1917) ·
 A Romance of the Redwoods (1917) ·
 The Little American (1917) ·
 The Woman God Forgot (1917) ·
 Nan of Music Mountain (1917) ·
 The Devil-Stone (1917) ·
 The Whispering Chorus (1918) ·
 Old Wives for New (1918) ·
 We Can't Have Everything (1918) ·
 Till I Come Back to You (1918) ·
 The Squaw Man (1918) ·
 Don't Change Your Husband (1919) ·
 For Better, for Worse (1919) ·
 Male and Female (1919) ·
 Why Change Your Wife? (1920) ·
 Something to Think About (1920) ·
 Forbidden Fruit (1921) ·
 The Affairs of Anatol (1921) ·
 Fool's Paradise (1921) ·
 Saturday Night (1922) ·
 Manslaughter (1922) ·
 Adam's Rib (1923) ·
 The Ten Commandments (1923) ·
 Triumph (1924) ·
 Feet of Clay (1924) ·
 The Golden Bed (1925) ·
 The Road to Yesterday (1925) ·
 The Volga Boatman (1926) ·
 The King of Kings (1927) ·
 Walking Back (1928) ·
 The Godless Girl (1929)
 

Sound
Dynamite (1929) ·
 Madam Satan (1930) ·
 The Squaw Man (1931) ·
 The Sign of the Cross (1932) ·
 This Day and Age (1933) ·
 Four Frightened People (1934) ·
 Cleopatra (1934) ·
 The Crusades (1935) ·
 The Plainsman (1936) ·
 The Buccaneer (1938) ·
 Union Pacific (1939) ·
 North West Mounted Police (1940) ·
 Reap the Wild Wind (1942) ·
 The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) ·
 Unconquered (1947) ·
 California's Golden Beginning (1948) ·
 Samson and Delilah (1949) ·
 The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) ·
 The Ten Commandments (1956)
 

  


Categories: 1932 films
English-language films
1930s drama films
American drama films
American epic films
Black-and-white films
Films based on plays
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Films made before the MPAA Production Code
Films set in the 1st century
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Paramount Pictures films
Religious epic films
Depictions of Nero on film
Films set in Rome
Nudity in film
Lesbian-related films





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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sign_of_the_Cross_(film)














The Sign of the Cross (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Sign of the Cross (disambiguation).

The Sign of the Cross
The sign of cross.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Cecil B. DeMille
Produced by
Cecil B. DeMille
Screenplay by
Waldemar Young
Sidney Buchman

Based on
The Sign of the Cross
 by Wilson Barrett
Starring
Fredric March
Elissa Landi
Claudette Colbert
Charles Laughton

Music by
Rudolph G. Kopp
Cinematography
Karl Struss
Edited by
Anne Bauchens

Production
 company

Paramount Pictures

Distributed by
Paramount Pictures

Release dates

November 30, 1932 (USA)


Running time
 125 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$650,000
The Sign of the Cross (1932) is a pre-Code epic film released by Paramount Pictures, produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Waldemar Young and Sidney Buchman, and based on the original 1895 play by Wilson Barrett.
Both play and film have a strong resemblance to the novel Quo Vadis, and like the novel, take place in ancient Rome during the reign of Nero. The art direction and costume design were by Mitchell Leisen who also acted as assistant director. Karl Struss was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.[1]
The film stars Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Claudette Colbert, and Charles Laughton, with Ian Keith and Arthur Hohl. The film is the third and last in DeMille's biblical trilogy with The Ten Commandments (1923) and The King of Kings (1927). It was filmed in Fresno, California.


Contents  [hide]
1 Cast
2 Production notes
3 Editing for reissue after enforcement of the production code
4 Catholic Legion of Decency
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Cast[edit]
Fredric March as Marcus Superbus, prefect of Rome
Elissa Landi as Mercia
Claudette Colbert as Empress Poppaea
Charles Laughton as Emperor Nero
Ian Keith as Tigellinus
Arthur Hohl as Titus
Harry Beresford as Favius Fontelas
Tommy Conlon as Stephan
Ferdinand Gottschalk as Glabrio
Vivian Tobin as Dacia
William V. Mong as Licinius
Joyzelle Joyner as Ancaria
Richard Alexander as Viturius
Nat Pendleton as Strabo
Clarence Burton as Servillius
Harold Healy as Tybul
Robert Seiter as Philodemus
Charles Middleton as Tyros
Production notes[edit]
The famous scene in which Poppaea (Claudette Colbert) bathes in asses' milk took several days to shoot. DeMille announced to the press that real asses' milk was used; however, it was actually powdered cow's milk. After a few days under the hot lights, the milk turned sour, making it very unpleasant for Colbert to work in the stench.[2][3][4]
To save production expense during the Great Depression, existing sets were reused as well as costumes left over from the making of The Ten Commandments.[5] DeMille also attempted to provide out-of-work actors jobs as extras such as the crowd arena scenes.[5]
Editing for reissue after enforcement of the production code[edit]
As with many other Pre-Code films that were reissued after the Production Code was strictly enforced in 1934, this film has a history of censorship. In the original version, Marcus Superbus (Fredric March) is unsuccessful in his desire to seduce Mercia (Elisa Landi), an innocent Christian girl. He then urges Ancaria (Joyzelle Joyner) to perform the erotic "Dance of the Naked Moon" that will "warm her into life".[6] This "lesbian dance" was cut from the negative for a 1938 reissue, but was restored by MCA-Universal for its 1993 video release.[7] Some gladiatorial combat footage was also cut for the 1938 reissue, as were arena sequences involving naked women being attacked by crocodiles and a gorilla. These were also restored in 1993.[8]
DeMille himself supervised a new version for its 1944 rerelease. New footage with a World War II setting, featuring actor Stanley Ridges (who did not originally appear in the film) was added to make the film more topical. In the new prologue, a group of planes is seen flying over what was ancient Rome. The conversation of the soldiers in one of the planes leads directly into the film's original opening scene. The last few seconds of the edited version of the film showed the planes flying off into the distance, rather than simply fading out on the original closing scene of the movie.
For many years, this edited version was the only one available. The version now shown on Turner Classic Movies has been restored to the original 125 minute length by the UCLA Film and Television Archive with the help of the DeMille estate and Universal Pictures, which now owns most pre-1950 Paramount sound features.
Catholic Legion of Decency[edit]
The reaction of the Catholic Church in the United States to the content in this film and in Ann Vickers led to the 1934 formation of the Catholic Legion of Decency, an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Church, in motion pictures.[9]
See also[edit]
Nudity in film
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Awards for The Sign of the Cross, IMDB.com
2.Jump up ^ Landazuri@Turner Classic Movies.
3.Jump up ^ Kinsey Institute, The Sign of the Cross.
4.Jump up ^ Vieira 1999, p. 106.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Birchard 2004, pp. 251–255.
6.Jump up ^ Vieira 1999, pp. 106–109.
7.Jump up ^ Vieira 1999, p. 109.
8.Jump up ^ Vieira 1999, p. 110.
9.Jump up ^ Black 1996, pp. 162–164.
BibliographyBirchard, Robert S. (2004). Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2324-0. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
Black, Gregory D. (1996). Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56592-8. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
Vieira, Mark A. (1999). Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-4475-8.
Online sources"The Sign of the Cross". Sex in the Cinema. The Kinsey Institute. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
Landazuri, Margarita. "The Sign of the Cross". tcm.com. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Sign of the Cross (film).
The Sign of the Cross at the Internet Movie Database
The Sign of the Cross at the TCM Movie Database
The Sign of the Cross at AllMovie
The Sign of the Cross at Rotten Tomatoes
The Sign of the Cross at Virtual History


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille


Silent
The Squaw Man (1914) ·
 Brewster's Millions (1914) ·
 The Master Mind (1914) ·
 The Only Son (1914) ·
 The Man on the Box (1914) ·
 The Call of the North (1914) ·
 The Virginian (1914) ·
 What's His Name (1914) ·
 The Man from Home (1914) ·
 Rose of the Rancho (1914) ·
 The Ghost Breaker (1914) ·
 The Girl of the Golden West (1915) ·
 After Five (1915) ·
 The Warrens of Virginia (1915) ·
 The Unafraid (1915) ·
 The Captive (1915) ·
 The Wild Goose Chase (1915) ·
 The Arab (1915) ·
 Chimmie Fadden (1915) ·
 Kindling (1915) ·
 Carmen (1915) ·
 Chimmie Fadden Out West (1915) ·
 The Cheat (1915) ·
 Temptation (1915) ·
 The Golden Chance (1915) ·
 The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1916) ·
 The Heart of Nora Flynn (1916) ·
 Maria Rosa (1916) ·
 The Dream Girl (1916) ·
 Joan the Woman (1916) ·
 Lost and Won (1917) ·
 A Romance of the Redwoods (1917) ·
 The Little American (1917) ·
 The Woman God Forgot (1917) ·
 Nan of Music Mountain (1917) ·
 The Devil-Stone (1917) ·
 The Whispering Chorus (1918) ·
 Old Wives for New (1918) ·
 We Can't Have Everything (1918) ·
 Till I Come Back to You (1918) ·
 The Squaw Man (1918) ·
 Don't Change Your Husband (1919) ·
 For Better, for Worse (1919) ·
 Male and Female (1919) ·
 Why Change Your Wife? (1920) ·
 Something to Think About (1920) ·
 Forbidden Fruit (1921) ·
 The Affairs of Anatol (1921) ·
 Fool's Paradise (1921) ·
 Saturday Night (1922) ·
 Manslaughter (1922) ·
 Adam's Rib (1923) ·
 The Ten Commandments (1923) ·
 Triumph (1924) ·
 Feet of Clay (1924) ·
 The Golden Bed (1925) ·
 The Road to Yesterday (1925) ·
 The Volga Boatman (1926) ·
 The King of Kings (1927) ·
 Walking Back (1928) ·
 The Godless Girl (1929)
 

Sound
Dynamite (1929) ·
 Madam Satan (1930) ·
 The Squaw Man (1931) ·
 The Sign of the Cross (1932) ·
 This Day and Age (1933) ·
 Four Frightened People (1934) ·
 Cleopatra (1934) ·
 The Crusades (1935) ·
 The Plainsman (1936) ·
 The Buccaneer (1938) ·
 Union Pacific (1939) ·
 North West Mounted Police (1940) ·
 Reap the Wild Wind (1942) ·
 The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) ·
 Unconquered (1947) ·
 California's Golden Beginning (1948) ·
 Samson and Delilah (1949) ·
 The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) ·
 The Ten Commandments (1956)
 

  


Categories: 1932 films
English-language films
1930s drama films
American drama films
American epic films
Black-and-white films
Films based on plays
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Films made before the MPAA Production Code
Films set in the 1st century
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Paramount Pictures films
Religious epic films
Depictions of Nero on film
Films set in Rome
Nudity in film
Lesbian-related films





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Edit links
This page was last modified on 2 April 2015, at 09:53.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sign_of_the_Cross_(film)














The King of Kings (1927 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


The King of Kings
Kingofkings poster.gif
Directed by
Cecil B. DeMille
Produced by
Cecil B. DeMille
Written by
Jeannie Macpherson
Starring
H.B. Warner
Dorothy Cumming
Ernest Torrence
Joseph Schildkraut
James Neill
Music by
Hugo Riesenfeld
Josiah Zuro
Cinematography
J. Peverell Marley
 F.J. Westerberg
Edited by
Anne Bauchens
 Harold McLernon
Distributed by
Pathé Exchange

Release dates

April 19, 1927


Running time
 155 minutes
Country
United States
Language
Silent film
English/Aramaic intertitles
Box office
$1.5 million[1]
The King of Kings is a 1927 American silent epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It depicts the last weeks of Jesus before his crucifixion and stars H. B. Warner in the lead role.
Featuring the opening and resurrection scenes in two-strip Technicolor, the film is the second in DeMille's biblical trilogy, preceded by The Ten Commandments (1923) and followed by The Sign of the Cross (1932).


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production details
4 Lawsuit
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
We see Mary Magdalene, here portrayed as a wild courtesan, entertain many men around her. Upon learning that Judas is with a carpenter she rides out on her chariot drawn by zebras to get him back. Peter is introduced as the Giant apostle, and we see the future gospel writer Mark as a child who is healed by Jesus. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is shown as a beautiful and saintly woman who is a mother to all her son's followers. Our first sight of Jesus is through the eyesight of a little girl, whom He heals. He is surrounded by a halo. Mary Magdelene arrives afterwards and talks to Judas, who reveals that he is only staying with Jesus in hopes of being made a king after Jesus becomes the king of kings. Jesus casts the Seven Deadly Sins out of Mary Magdalene in a multiple exposure sequence.
Jesus is also shown resurrecting Lazarus and healing the little children. Some humor is derived when one girl asks if He can heal broken legs and He says yes, she gives him a legless doll. Jesus smiles and repairs the doll. The crucifixion is foreshadowed when Jesus, having helped a poor family, wanders through the father's carpentry shop and, himself a carpenter's son, briefly helps carve a piece of wood. When a sheet covering the object is removed, it is revealed to be a cross towering over Jesus.
Jesus and His apostles enter Jerusalem, where Judas incites the people and rallies them to proclaim Jesus King of the Jews. Jesus, however, renounces all claims of being an Earthly king. Caiaphas the High Priest is also angry at Judas for having led people to a man whom he sees as a false prophet. Meanwhile Jesus drives away Satan who offers Him an Earthly kingdom, and he protects a woman caught in adultery. The words he draws in the sand are revealed to be the sins the accusers themselves committed.
Judas, desperate to save himself from Caiaphas, agrees to turn over Jesus. Noticeably at the Last Supper, when Jesus distributes the bread and wine saying that they are His body and blood, Judas refuses to eat. He puts the cup to his lips but refuses to drink; he tears off a piece of bread but lets it drop to the ground. Towards the end, Mary confronts her son and tells Him to flee the danger that is coming. Jesus replies that it must be done for the salvation of all peoples. They leave the room but the camera focuses on the table upon which a dove alights for a moment.
Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane where He is soon captured by the Roman soldiers and betrayed by Judas. Judas' life is saved, but on seeing that Jesus is going to be killed he is horrified. He takes a rope that the Romans had used to bind Jesus' wrists and runs off. Jesus is beaten and then presented by Pontius Pilate to the crowd. Mary pleads for the life of her son and Mary Magdalene speaks for Him but Caiaphas bribes the crowd to shout against Jesus.
Jesus is taken away to be crucified, though He pauses on the Via Dolorosa to heal a group of cripples in an alley, regardless of His weakened condition. He is crucified and His enemies throw insults at Him. (One woman even anachronistically eats popcorn and smiles with glee at Jesus' crucifixion.) When Jesus does die, however, a great earthquake comes up. The tree where Judas had hanged himself with the rope used to bind Jesus's wrists is swallowed up amidst gouts of hellfire. The sky turns black, lightning strikes, the wind blows, the people who had mocked Jesus run in terror, and the veil covering the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple is torn in two.
The tumult ends when Mary looks up at heaven and asks God to forgive the world for the death of their son. The chaos ends and the sun shines. Jesus is taken down from the cross and is buried. On the third day, He rises from the dead as promised. To emphasize the importance of the resurrection, this scene from an otherwise black and white film is shot in color. Jesus goes to the Apostles and tells them to spread His message to the world. He tells them "I am with you always" as the scene shifts to a modern city to show that Jesus still watches over His followers.
Many of the film's intertitles are quotes (or paraphrases) from Scripture, often with chapter and verse accompanying.
Cast[edit]
H. B. Warner as Jesus
Dorothy Cumming as Mary, the mother of Jesus
Ernest Torrence as Peter
Joseph Schildkraut as Judas Iscariot
Jacqueline Logan as Mary Magdalene
Cast notes
Sally Rand was an extra in the film, years before becoming notorious for her "fan dance" at the 1933 World's Fair.
Writer Ayn Rand (no relation to Sally Rand) also was an extra in the film, and met her future husband Frank O'Connor on set.
Production details[edit]


 This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2012)
A giant gate built for this film was later used in the 1933 film King Kong, and was among the sets torched for the "burning of Atlanta" in Gone with the Wind (1939). Other sets and costumes were re-used for the 1965 Elvis Presley film, Harum Scarum.
The King of Kings was the first movie that premiered at the noted Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California on May 18, 1927.[2]
The movie has two Technicolor sequences, the beginning and the resurrection scene, which use the two-strip process invented by Herbert Kalmus.
Lawsuit[edit]
In 1928 actress Valeska Surratt and scholar Mirza Ahmad Sohrab sued DeMille for stealing the scenario for The King of Kings from them.[3] The case went to trial in February 1930 but eventually settled without publicity.[4] Surratt who had left films to return to the stage in 1917 appeared to be unofficially blacklisted after the suit.[4]
See also[edit]
King of Kings (1961 film)
List of early color feature films
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Quigley Publishing Company "The All Time Best Sellers", International Motion Picture Almanac 1937-38 (1938) p 942 accessed 19 April 2014
2.Jump up ^ "Chinese Theatres - History". Mann Theatres. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
3.Jump up ^ The Helena Independent (Helena, Montana), 25 Feb 1928
4.^ Jump up to: a b http://www.tribstar.com/history/local_story_073225216.html
External links[edit]
The King of Kings at the American Film Institute Catalog
The King of Kings at the Internet Movie Database
The King of Kings at AllMovie
The King of Kings at the TCM Movie Database
Criterion Collection essay by Peter Matthews





[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille


Silent
The Squaw Man (1914) ·
 Brewster's Millions (1914) ·
 The Master Mind (1914) ·
 The Only Son (1914) ·
 The Man on the Box (1914) ·
 The Call of the North (1914) ·
 The Virginian (1914) ·
 What's His Name (1914) ·
 The Man from Home (1914) ·
 Rose of the Rancho (1914) ·
 The Ghost Breaker (1914) ·
 The Girl of the Golden West (1915) ·
 After Five (1915) ·
 The Warrens of Virginia (1915) ·
 The Unafraid (1915) ·
 The Captive (1915) ·
 The Wild Goose Chase (1915) ·
 The Arab (1915) ·
 Chimmie Fadden (1915) ·
 Kindling (1915) ·
 Carmen (1915) ·
 Chimmie Fadden Out West (1915) ·
 The Cheat (1915) ·
 Temptation (1915) ·
 The Golden Chance (1915) ·
 The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1916) ·
 The Heart of Nora Flynn (1916) ·
 Maria Rosa (1916) ·
 The Dream Girl (1916) ·
 Joan the Woman (1916) ·
 Lost and Won (1917) ·
 A Romance of the Redwoods (1917) ·
 The Little American (1917) ·
 The Woman God Forgot (1917) ·
 Nan of Music Mountain (1917) ·
 The Devil-Stone (1917) ·
 The Whispering Chorus (1918) ·
 Old Wives for New (1918) ·
 We Can't Have Everything (1918) ·
 Till I Come Back to You (1918) ·
 The Squaw Man (1918) ·
 Don't Change Your Husband (1919) ·
 For Better, for Worse (1919) ·
 Male and Female (1919) ·
 Why Change Your Wife? (1920) ·
 Something to Think About (1920) ·
 Forbidden Fruit (1921) ·
 The Affairs of Anatol (1921) ·
 Fool's Paradise (1921) ·
 Saturday Night (1922) ·
 Manslaughter (1922) ·
 Adam's Rib (1923) ·
 The Ten Commandments (1923) ·
 Triumph (1924) ·
 Feet of Clay (1924) ·
 The Golden Bed (1925) ·
 The Road to Yesterday (1925) ·
 The Volga Boatman (1926) ·
 The King of Kings (1927) ·
 Walking Back (1928) ·
 The Godless Girl (1929)
 

Sound
Dynamite (1929) ·
 Madam Satan (1930) ·
 The Squaw Man (1931) ·
 The Sign of the Cross (1932) ·
 This Day and Age (1933) ·
 Four Frightened People (1934) ·
 Cleopatra (1934) ·
 The Crusades (1935) ·
 The Plainsman (1936) ·
 The Buccaneer (1938) ·
 Union Pacific (1939) ·
 North West Mounted Police (1940) ·
 Reap the Wild Wind (1942) ·
 The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) ·
 Unconquered (1947) ·
 California's Golden Beginning (1948) ·
 Samson and Delilah (1949) ·
 The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) ·
 The Ten Commandments (1956)
 

  


Categories: 1927 films
American silent feature films
Silent films in color
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille
American films
Religious epic films
Film portrayals of Jesus' death and resurrection
Portrayals of the Virgin Mary in film
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in the 1st century







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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Kings_(1927_film)












The King of Kings (1927 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


The King of Kings
Kingofkings poster.gif
Directed by
Cecil B. DeMille
Produced by
Cecil B. DeMille
Written by
Jeannie Macpherson
Starring
H.B. Warner
Dorothy Cumming
Ernest Torrence
Joseph Schildkraut
James Neill
Music by
Hugo Riesenfeld
Josiah Zuro
Cinematography
J. Peverell Marley
 F.J. Westerberg
Edited by
Anne Bauchens
 Harold McLernon
Distributed by
Pathé Exchange

Release dates

April 19, 1927


Running time
 155 minutes
Country
United States
Language
Silent film
English/Aramaic intertitles
Box office
$1.5 million[1]
The King of Kings is a 1927 American silent epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It depicts the last weeks of Jesus before his crucifixion and stars H. B. Warner in the lead role.
Featuring the opening and resurrection scenes in two-strip Technicolor, the film is the second in DeMille's biblical trilogy, preceded by The Ten Commandments (1923) and followed by The Sign of the Cross (1932).


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production details
4 Lawsuit
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
We see Mary Magdalene, here portrayed as a wild courtesan, entertain many men around her. Upon learning that Judas is with a carpenter she rides out on her chariot drawn by zebras to get him back. Peter is introduced as the Giant apostle, and we see the future gospel writer Mark as a child who is healed by Jesus. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is shown as a beautiful and saintly woman who is a mother to all her son's followers. Our first sight of Jesus is through the eyesight of a little girl, whom He heals. He is surrounded by a halo. Mary Magdelene arrives afterwards and talks to Judas, who reveals that he is only staying with Jesus in hopes of being made a king after Jesus becomes the king of kings. Jesus casts the Seven Deadly Sins out of Mary Magdalene in a multiple exposure sequence.
Jesus is also shown resurrecting Lazarus and healing the little children. Some humor is derived when one girl asks if He can heal broken legs and He says yes, she gives him a legless doll. Jesus smiles and repairs the doll. The crucifixion is foreshadowed when Jesus, having helped a poor family, wanders through the father's carpentry shop and, himself a carpenter's son, briefly helps carve a piece of wood. When a sheet covering the object is removed, it is revealed to be a cross towering over Jesus.
Jesus and His apostles enter Jerusalem, where Judas incites the people and rallies them to proclaim Jesus King of the Jews. Jesus, however, renounces all claims of being an Earthly king. Caiaphas the High Priest is also angry at Judas for having led people to a man whom he sees as a false prophet. Meanwhile Jesus drives away Satan who offers Him an Earthly kingdom, and he protects a woman caught in adultery. The words he draws in the sand are revealed to be the sins the accusers themselves committed.
Judas, desperate to save himself from Caiaphas, agrees to turn over Jesus. Noticeably at the Last Supper, when Jesus distributes the bread and wine saying that they are His body and blood, Judas refuses to eat. He puts the cup to his lips but refuses to drink; he tears off a piece of bread but lets it drop to the ground. Towards the end, Mary confronts her son and tells Him to flee the danger that is coming. Jesus replies that it must be done for the salvation of all peoples. They leave the room but the camera focuses on the table upon which a dove alights for a moment.
Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane where He is soon captured by the Roman soldiers and betrayed by Judas. Judas' life is saved, but on seeing that Jesus is going to be killed he is horrified. He takes a rope that the Romans had used to bind Jesus' wrists and runs off. Jesus is beaten and then presented by Pontius Pilate to the crowd. Mary pleads for the life of her son and Mary Magdalene speaks for Him but Caiaphas bribes the crowd to shout against Jesus.
Jesus is taken away to be crucified, though He pauses on the Via Dolorosa to heal a group of cripples in an alley, regardless of His weakened condition. He is crucified and His enemies throw insults at Him. (One woman even anachronistically eats popcorn and smiles with glee at Jesus' crucifixion.) When Jesus does die, however, a great earthquake comes up. The tree where Judas had hanged himself with the rope used to bind Jesus's wrists is swallowed up amidst gouts of hellfire. The sky turns black, lightning strikes, the wind blows, the people who had mocked Jesus run in terror, and the veil covering the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple is torn in two.
The tumult ends when Mary looks up at heaven and asks God to forgive the world for the death of their son. The chaos ends and the sun shines. Jesus is taken down from the cross and is buried. On the third day, He rises from the dead as promised. To emphasize the importance of the resurrection, this scene from an otherwise black and white film is shot in color. Jesus goes to the Apostles and tells them to spread His message to the world. He tells them "I am with you always" as the scene shifts to a modern city to show that Jesus still watches over His followers.
Many of the film's intertitles are quotes (or paraphrases) from Scripture, often with chapter and verse accompanying.
Cast[edit]
H. B. Warner as Jesus
Dorothy Cumming as Mary, the mother of Jesus
Ernest Torrence as Peter
Joseph Schildkraut as Judas Iscariot
Jacqueline Logan as Mary Magdalene
Cast notes
Sally Rand was an extra in the film, years before becoming notorious for her "fan dance" at the 1933 World's Fair.
Writer Ayn Rand (no relation to Sally Rand) also was an extra in the film, and met her future husband Frank O'Connor on set.
Production details[edit]


 This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2012)
A giant gate built for this film was later used in the 1933 film King Kong, and was among the sets torched for the "burning of Atlanta" in Gone with the Wind (1939). Other sets and costumes were re-used for the 1965 Elvis Presley film, Harum Scarum.
The King of Kings was the first movie that premiered at the noted Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California on May 18, 1927.[2]
The movie has two Technicolor sequences, the beginning and the resurrection scene, which use the two-strip process invented by Herbert Kalmus.
Lawsuit[edit]
In 1928 actress Valeska Surratt and scholar Mirza Ahmad Sohrab sued DeMille for stealing the scenario for The King of Kings from them.[3] The case went to trial in February 1930 but eventually settled without publicity.[4] Surratt who had left films to return to the stage in 1917 appeared to be unofficially blacklisted after the suit.[4]
See also[edit]
King of Kings (1961 film)
List of early color feature films
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Quigley Publishing Company "The All Time Best Sellers", International Motion Picture Almanac 1937-38 (1938) p 942 accessed 19 April 2014
2.Jump up ^ "Chinese Theatres - History". Mann Theatres. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
3.Jump up ^ The Helena Independent (Helena, Montana), 25 Feb 1928
4.^ Jump up to: a b http://www.tribstar.com/history/local_story_073225216.html
External links[edit]
The King of Kings at the American Film Institute Catalog
The King of Kings at the Internet Movie Database
The King of Kings at AllMovie
The King of Kings at the TCM Movie Database
Criterion Collection essay by Peter Matthews





[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille


Silent
The Squaw Man (1914) ·
 Brewster's Millions (1914) ·
 The Master Mind (1914) ·
 The Only Son (1914) ·
 The Man on the Box (1914) ·
 The Call of the North (1914) ·
 The Virginian (1914) ·
 What's His Name (1914) ·
 The Man from Home (1914) ·
 Rose of the Rancho (1914) ·
 The Ghost Breaker (1914) ·
 The Girl of the Golden West (1915) ·
 After Five (1915) ·
 The Warrens of Virginia (1915) ·
 The Unafraid (1915) ·
 The Captive (1915) ·
 The Wild Goose Chase (1915) ·
 The Arab (1915) ·
 Chimmie Fadden (1915) ·
 Kindling (1915) ·
 Carmen (1915) ·
 Chimmie Fadden Out West (1915) ·
 The Cheat (1915) ·
 Temptation (1915) ·
 The Golden Chance (1915) ·
 The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1916) ·
 The Heart of Nora Flynn (1916) ·
 Maria Rosa (1916) ·
 The Dream Girl (1916) ·
 Joan the Woman (1916) ·
 Lost and Won (1917) ·
 A Romance of the Redwoods (1917) ·
 The Little American (1917) ·
 The Woman God Forgot (1917) ·
 Nan of Music Mountain (1917) ·
 The Devil-Stone (1917) ·
 The Whispering Chorus (1918) ·
 Old Wives for New (1918) ·
 We Can't Have Everything (1918) ·
 Till I Come Back to You (1918) ·
 The Squaw Man (1918) ·
 Don't Change Your Husband (1919) ·
 For Better, for Worse (1919) ·
 Male and Female (1919) ·
 Why Change Your Wife? (1920) ·
 Something to Think About (1920) ·
 Forbidden Fruit (1921) ·
 The Affairs of Anatol (1921) ·
 Fool's Paradise (1921) ·
 Saturday Night (1922) ·
 Manslaughter (1922) ·
 Adam's Rib (1923) ·
 The Ten Commandments (1923) ·
 Triumph (1924) ·
 Feet of Clay (1924) ·
 The Golden Bed (1925) ·
 The Road to Yesterday (1925) ·
 The Volga Boatman (1926) ·
 The King of Kings (1927) ·
 Walking Back (1928) ·
 The Godless Girl (1929)
 

Sound
Dynamite (1929) ·
 Madam Satan (1930) ·
 The Squaw Man (1931) ·
 The Sign of the Cross (1932) ·
 This Day and Age (1933) ·
 Four Frightened People (1934) ·
 Cleopatra (1934) ·
 The Crusades (1935) ·
 The Plainsman (1936) ·
 The Buccaneer (1938) ·
 Union Pacific (1939) ·
 North West Mounted Police (1940) ·
 Reap the Wild Wind (1942) ·
 The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) ·
 Unconquered (1947) ·
 California's Golden Beginning (1948) ·
 Samson and Delilah (1949) ·
 The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) ·
 The Ten Commandments (1956)
 

  


Categories: 1927 films
American silent feature films
Silent films in color
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille
American films
Religious epic films
Film portrayals of Jesus' death and resurrection
Portrayals of the Virgin Mary in film
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in the 1st century







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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Kings_(1927_film)













The Ten Commandments (1923 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


The Ten Commandments
TenCommandments1923.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Cecil B. DeMille
Produced by
Cecil B. DeMille
Story by
Jeanie MacPherson
Starring
Theodore Roberts
Charles De Roche
Estelle Taylor
Julia Faye
Richard Dix
Rod La Rocque
Leatrice Joy
Nita Naldi
Cinematography
Bert Glennon
Peverel Marley
 Archibald Stout
 J.F. Westerberg
Edited by
Anne Bauchens
Distributed by
Paramount Pictures

Release dates

December 4, 1923 (Los Angeles premiere)
December 21, 1923 (New York City premiere)


Running time
 136 minutes
Country
United States
Language
Silent
 English intertitles
Budget
$1,475,837[1]
Box office
$4,168,790[1][2]
The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American silent epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Written by Jeanie MacPherson, the film is divided into two parts: a prologue recreating the biblical story of the Exodus and a modern story concerning two brothers and their respective views of the Ten Commandments.
Lauded for its "immense and stupendous" scenes, use of two-strip Technicolor and parting of the Red Sea sequence,[3] the expensive film proved to be a box-office hit upon release.[4] It is the first in DeMille's biblical trilogy, followed by The King of Kings (1927) and The Sign of the Cross (1932).


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Writing
3.2 Filming
4 Release 4.1 Critical response
4.2 Box office
5 Remake
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
Despite its epic scale, the Moses story only takes up about the first third of the film. After that, the story changes to a modern setting involving living by the lessons of the commandments. Two brothers make opposite decisions, one, John, to follow his mother's teaching of the Ten Commandments and become a poor carpenter, and the other, Danny, to break every one of them and rise to the top. The film shows his unchecked immorality to be momentarily gainful, but ultimately disastrous.
A thoughtful contrast is made between the carpenter brother and his mother. The mother reads the story of Moses and emphasizes strict obedience and fear of God. The carpenter, however, reads from the New Testament story of Jesus' healing of lepers. His emphasis is on a loving and forgiving God. The film also shows the mother's strict lawful morality to be flawed in comparison to her son's version.
Danny becomes a corrupt contractor who builds a church with shoddy concrete, pocketing the money saved and becoming very rich. One day, his mother comes to visit him at his work site, but the walls are becoming unstable due to the shaking of heavy trucks on nearby roads. One of the walls collapses on top of the mother, killing her. In her dying breath, she tells Danny that it is her fault for teaching him to fear God, when she should have taught him love.
This sends Danny on a downward spiral as he attempts to right his wrongs and clear his conscience, but he only gets into more trouble. To make money, he steals pearls from his mistress, and when she fights back, he kills her. He attempts to flee to Mexico on a motorboat, but rough weather sends him off course and he crashes into a rocky island, where he is presumably killed.
Throughout the film, the visual motif of the tablets of the commandments appears in the sets, with a particular commandment appearing on them when it is relevant to the story.
Cast[edit]
PrologueTheodore Roberts as Moses, The Lawgiver
Charles De Roche as Rameses, The Magnificent
Estelle Taylor as Miriam, The Sister of Moses
Julia Faye as The Wife of Pharaoh
Terrence Moore as The Son of Pharaoh
James Neill as Aaron, Brother of Moses
Lawson Butt as Dathan, The Discontented
Clarence Burton as The Taskmaster
Noble Johnson as The Bronze Man
StoryEdythe Chapman as Mrs. Martha McTavish
Richard Dix as John McTavish, her son
Rod La Rocque as Dan McTavish, her son
Leatrice Joy as Mary Leigh
Nita Naldi as Sally Lung, a Eurasian
Robert Edeson as Redding, an Inspector
Charles Ogle as The Doctor
Agnes Ayres as The Outcast
Production[edit]
The idea for the film was based upon the winning submission to a contest in which the public suggested ideas for DeMille's next film.[2] The winner was F.C. Nelson of Lansing, Michigan; the first line of his suggestion read: "You cannot break the Ten Commandments—they will break you."[2] Production on the film started on May 21, 1923 and ended on August 16, 1923.[2]
Writing[edit]
Jeanie MacPherson, the film's screenwriter, first thought to "interpret the Commandments in episodic form".[2] Both she and DeMille eventually decided on an unusual two-part screenplay: a biblical prologue and a modern story demonstrating the consequences of breaking the Ten Commandments.[2] In a treatment for the film, MacPherson described the four main characters of the modern story:

There are four people in the modern story of The Ten Commandments, and they view these Commandments in four different ways. There is Mrs. McTavish, the mother, who keeps the Commandments the wrong way. She is narrow. She is bigoted. She is bound with ritual. She is a representative of orthodoxy, yet withal she is a fine, clean, strong woman just like dozens we all know.
There is a girl, Mary Leigh, who doesn't bother about the Ten Commandments at all. She is a good kid, but she has spent so much time working that she hasn't learned the Ten Commandments...
Dan McTavish knows the Ten Commandments, but defies them.
John McTavish is a garden variety of human being, which believes the Ten Commandments as unchanging, immutable laws of the universe. He is not a sissy or a goody-goody, he is a regular fellow, an ideal type of man of high and steadfast principles, who believes the Commandments are as practicable in 1923 as they were in the time of Moses.[2]
Filming[edit]
The Exodus scenes were filmed at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes in northern Santa Barbara County.[2] The film location was originally chosen because its immense sand dunes provided a superficial resemblance to the Egyptian desert. Rumor had it that after the filming was complete, the massive sets – which included four 35-foot-tall (11 m) Pharaoh statues, 21 sphinxes, and gates reaching a height of 110 feet, which were built by a small army of 1,600 workers – were dynamited and buried in the sand. Instead, the wind, rain and sand at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes likely collapsed and buried a large part of the set under the ever-shifting dunes. The statues and sphinxes are in roughly the same place they were during filming. In 2012, archaeologists uncovered the head of one of the prop sphinxes; a 2014 recovery effort showed the body of that sphinx to have deteriorated significantly, but a second better-preserved sphinx was discovered and excavated.[5][6]
The parting of the Red Sea scene was shot in Seal Beach, California.[7] The visual effect of keeping the walls of water apart while the Israelites walked through was accomplished with a slab of Jell-O that was sliced in two and filmed close up as it jiggled. This shot was then combined with live-action footage of Israelites walking into the distance to create the illusion.[8][9]
Portions of the modern story were filmed in San Francisco, with the cathedral building sequence filmed at the then under construction Sts. Peter and Paul Church on Filbert Street and the adjoining Washington Square.
Release[edit]
Distributed by Paramount Pictures, The Ten Commandments premiered at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre (in Hollywood) on December 4, 1923.[10][11]
Critical response[edit]
On its release, critics praised The Ten Commandments overall; however, the part of the film set in modern times received mixed reviews.[12] Variety, for example, declared the opening scenes alone worth the admission price, but found the remainder of the film disappointing by comparison: "The opening Biblical scenes of The Ten Commandments are irresistible in their assembly, breadth, color and direction [...] They are immense and stupendous, so big the modern tale after that seems puny."[3]
Box office[edit]
It was the second most popular film of 1923 in the United States and Canada.[13] The film's box-office returns held the Paramount revenue record for 25 years until it was broken by other DeMille films.[4]
Remake[edit]
Main article: The Ten Commandments (1956 film)
DeMille directed a second, expanded version of the biblical story in 1956. For the later version, DeMille dropped the modern-day storyline in favor of profiling more of Moses' early life. In 2006, the 1923 film was released on DVD as an extra feature on the 50th Anniversary DVD release of the 1956 film. In the DVD commentary with Katherine Orrison included with the 1923 film, she states that DeMille refilmed several sequences nearly shot-for-shot for the new version, and also had set pieces constructed for the later film that were near-duplicates of what he had used in 1923.
See also[edit]
List of early color feature films
The House That Shadows Built (1931 promotional film by Paramount)
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Hall, Sheldon (2010). Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History. Wayne State University Press. p. 163.
2.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Birchard, Robert S. (2004). "45, The Ten Commandments". Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2324-0.
3.^ Jump up to: a b "The Ten Commandments". Variety. LXXIII (6): 26. December 27, 1923. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
4.^ Jump up to: a b "He Himself Was "Colossal"". The Montreal Gazette. January 22, 1959. Retrieved 2014-04-28.
5.Jump up ^ Gidman, Jenn (October 16, 2014). "Archaeologists Uncover Giant Sphinx in California Dunes". USA Today. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
6.Jump up ^ Branson-Potts, Hailey (October 17, 2014). "Sphinx unearthed from 1923 Cecil B. DeMille movie set". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
7.Jump up ^ Strawther, Larry (2014). Seal Beach: A Brief History. The History Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-62585-035-5.
8.Jump up ^ "All About Special Effects – Trivia Quiz (Answers)". NovaOnline. PBS. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
9.Jump up ^ Brier, Bob (2013). Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 191. ISBN 978-1-137-40146-5.
10.Jump up ^ Brown, Gene (1995). Movie Time: A Chronology of Hollywood and the Movie Industry. New York: Macmillan. p. 68. ISBN 0-02-860429-6.
11.Jump up ^ "The Ten Commandments". Silent Era. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
12.Jump up ^ Higashi, Sumiko (1994). Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture: The Silent Era. University of California Press. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-520-91481-0.
13.Jump up ^ Variety list of box office champions for 1923
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Ten Commandments (1923 film).
The Ten Commandments at the Internet Movie Database
The Ten Commandments at AllMovie
The Ten Commandments Archaeological Site
Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The Ten Commandments at Virtual History


[show]
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The Ten Commandments (1923 film)

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The Ten Commandments
TenCommandments1923.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Cecil B. DeMille
Produced by
Cecil B. DeMille
Story by
Jeanie MacPherson
Starring
Theodore Roberts
Charles De Roche
Estelle Taylor
Julia Faye
Richard Dix
Rod La Rocque
Leatrice Joy
Nita Naldi
Cinematography
Bert Glennon
Peverel Marley
 Archibald Stout
 J.F. Westerberg
Edited by
Anne Bauchens
Distributed by
Paramount Pictures

Release dates

December 4, 1923 (Los Angeles premiere)
December 21, 1923 (New York City premiere)


Running time
 136 minutes
Country
United States
Language
Silent
 English intertitles
Budget
$1,475,837[1]
Box office
$4,168,790[1][2]
The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American silent epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Written by Jeanie MacPherson, the film is divided into two parts: a prologue recreating the biblical story of the Exodus and a modern story concerning two brothers and their respective views of the Ten Commandments.
Lauded for its "immense and stupendous" scenes, use of two-strip Technicolor and parting of the Red Sea sequence,[3] the expensive film proved to be a box-office hit upon release.[4] It is the first in DeMille's biblical trilogy, followed by The King of Kings (1927) and The Sign of the Cross (1932).


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Writing
3.2 Filming
4 Release 4.1 Critical response
4.2 Box office
5 Remake
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
Despite its epic scale, the Moses story only takes up about the first third of the film. After that, the story changes to a modern setting involving living by the lessons of the commandments. Two brothers make opposite decisions, one, John, to follow his mother's teaching of the Ten Commandments and become a poor carpenter, and the other, Danny, to break every one of them and rise to the top. The film shows his unchecked immorality to be momentarily gainful, but ultimately disastrous.
A thoughtful contrast is made between the carpenter brother and his mother. The mother reads the story of Moses and emphasizes strict obedience and fear of God. The carpenter, however, reads from the New Testament story of Jesus' healing of lepers. His emphasis is on a loving and forgiving God. The film also shows the mother's strict lawful morality to be flawed in comparison to her son's version.
Danny becomes a corrupt contractor who builds a church with shoddy concrete, pocketing the money saved and becoming very rich. One day, his mother comes to visit him at his work site, but the walls are becoming unstable due to the shaking of heavy trucks on nearby roads. One of the walls collapses on top of the mother, killing her. In her dying breath, she tells Danny that it is her fault for teaching him to fear God, when she should have taught him love.
This sends Danny on a downward spiral as he attempts to right his wrongs and clear his conscience, but he only gets into more trouble. To make money, he steals pearls from his mistress, and when she fights back, he kills her. He attempts to flee to Mexico on a motorboat, but rough weather sends him off course and he crashes into a rocky island, where he is presumably killed.
Throughout the film, the visual motif of the tablets of the commandments appears in the sets, with a particular commandment appearing on them when it is relevant to the story.
Cast[edit]
PrologueTheodore Roberts as Moses, The Lawgiver
Charles De Roche as Rameses, The Magnificent
Estelle Taylor as Miriam, The Sister of Moses
Julia Faye as The Wife of Pharaoh
Terrence Moore as The Son of Pharaoh
James Neill as Aaron, Brother of Moses
Lawson Butt as Dathan, The Discontented
Clarence Burton as The Taskmaster
Noble Johnson as The Bronze Man
StoryEdythe Chapman as Mrs. Martha McTavish
Richard Dix as John McTavish, her son
Rod La Rocque as Dan McTavish, her son
Leatrice Joy as Mary Leigh
Nita Naldi as Sally Lung, a Eurasian
Robert Edeson as Redding, an Inspector
Charles Ogle as The Doctor
Agnes Ayres as The Outcast
Production[edit]
The idea for the film was based upon the winning submission to a contest in which the public suggested ideas for DeMille's next film.[2] The winner was F.C. Nelson of Lansing, Michigan; the first line of his suggestion read: "You cannot break the Ten Commandments—they will break you."[2] Production on the film started on May 21, 1923 and ended on August 16, 1923.[2]
Writing[edit]
Jeanie MacPherson, the film's screenwriter, first thought to "interpret the Commandments in episodic form".[2] Both she and DeMille eventually decided on an unusual two-part screenplay: a biblical prologue and a modern story demonstrating the consequences of breaking the Ten Commandments.[2] In a treatment for the film, MacPherson described the four main characters of the modern story:

There are four people in the modern story of The Ten Commandments, and they view these Commandments in four different ways. There is Mrs. McTavish, the mother, who keeps the Commandments the wrong way. She is narrow. She is bigoted. She is bound with ritual. She is a representative of orthodoxy, yet withal she is a fine, clean, strong woman just like dozens we all know.
There is a girl, Mary Leigh, who doesn't bother about the Ten Commandments at all. She is a good kid, but she has spent so much time working that she hasn't learned the Ten Commandments...
Dan McTavish knows the Ten Commandments, but defies them.
John McTavish is a garden variety of human being, which believes the Ten Commandments as unchanging, immutable laws of the universe. He is not a sissy or a goody-goody, he is a regular fellow, an ideal type of man of high and steadfast principles, who believes the Commandments are as practicable in 1923 as they were in the time of Moses.[2]
Filming[edit]
The Exodus scenes were filmed at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes in northern Santa Barbara County.[2] The film location was originally chosen because its immense sand dunes provided a superficial resemblance to the Egyptian desert. Rumor had it that after the filming was complete, the massive sets – which included four 35-foot-tall (11 m) Pharaoh statues, 21 sphinxes, and gates reaching a height of 110 feet, which were built by a small army of 1,600 workers – were dynamited and buried in the sand. Instead, the wind, rain and sand at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes likely collapsed and buried a large part of the set under the ever-shifting dunes. The statues and sphinxes are in roughly the same place they were during filming. In 2012, archaeologists uncovered the head of one of the prop sphinxes; a 2014 recovery effort showed the body of that sphinx to have deteriorated significantly, but a second better-preserved sphinx was discovered and excavated.[5][6]
The parting of the Red Sea scene was shot in Seal Beach, California.[7] The visual effect of keeping the walls of water apart while the Israelites walked through was accomplished with a slab of Jell-O that was sliced in two and filmed close up as it jiggled. This shot was then combined with live-action footage of Israelites walking into the distance to create the illusion.[8][9]
Portions of the modern story were filmed in San Francisco, with the cathedral building sequence filmed at the then under construction Sts. Peter and Paul Church on Filbert Street and the adjoining Washington Square.
Release[edit]
Distributed by Paramount Pictures, The Ten Commandments premiered at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre (in Hollywood) on December 4, 1923.[10][11]
Critical response[edit]
On its release, critics praised The Ten Commandments overall; however, the part of the film set in modern times received mixed reviews.[12] Variety, for example, declared the opening scenes alone worth the admission price, but found the remainder of the film disappointing by comparison: "The opening Biblical scenes of The Ten Commandments are irresistible in their assembly, breadth, color and direction [...] They are immense and stupendous, so big the modern tale after that seems puny."[3]
Box office[edit]
It was the second most popular film of 1923 in the United States and Canada.[13] The film's box-office returns held the Paramount revenue record for 25 years until it was broken by other DeMille films.[4]
Remake[edit]
Main article: The Ten Commandments (1956 film)
DeMille directed a second, expanded version of the biblical story in 1956. For the later version, DeMille dropped the modern-day storyline in favor of profiling more of Moses' early life. In 2006, the 1923 film was released on DVD as an extra feature on the 50th Anniversary DVD release of the 1956 film. In the DVD commentary with Katherine Orrison included with the 1923 film, she states that DeMille refilmed several sequences nearly shot-for-shot for the new version, and also had set pieces constructed for the later film that were near-duplicates of what he had used in 1923.
See also[edit]
List of early color feature films
The House That Shadows Built (1931 promotional film by Paramount)
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Hall, Sheldon (2010). Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History. Wayne State University Press. p. 163.
2.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Birchard, Robert S. (2004). "45, The Ten Commandments". Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2324-0.
3.^ Jump up to: a b "The Ten Commandments". Variety. LXXIII (6): 26. December 27, 1923. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
4.^ Jump up to: a b "He Himself Was "Colossal"". The Montreal Gazette. January 22, 1959. Retrieved 2014-04-28.
5.Jump up ^ Gidman, Jenn (October 16, 2014). "Archaeologists Uncover Giant Sphinx in California Dunes". USA Today. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
6.Jump up ^ Branson-Potts, Hailey (October 17, 2014). "Sphinx unearthed from 1923 Cecil B. DeMille movie set". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
7.Jump up ^ Strawther, Larry (2014). Seal Beach: A Brief History. The History Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-62585-035-5.
8.Jump up ^ "All About Special Effects – Trivia Quiz (Answers)". NovaOnline. PBS. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
9.Jump up ^ Brier, Bob (2013). Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 191. ISBN 978-1-137-40146-5.
10.Jump up ^ Brown, Gene (1995). Movie Time: A Chronology of Hollywood and the Movie Industry. New York: Macmillan. p. 68. ISBN 0-02-860429-6.
11.Jump up ^ "The Ten Commandments". Silent Era. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
12.Jump up ^ Higashi, Sumiko (1994). Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture: The Silent Era. University of California Press. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-520-91481-0.
13.Jump up ^ Variety list of box office champions for 1923
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Ten Commandments (1923 film).
The Ten Commandments at the Internet Movie Database
The Ten Commandments at AllMovie
The Ten Commandments Archaeological Site
Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The Ten Commandments at Virtual History


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille




























































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Book of Exodus media




































































  


Categories: 1923 films
1920s drama films
American drama films
American epic films
American silent feature films
Black-and-white films
Famous Players-Lasky films
Films based on the Hebrew Bible
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films about Christianity
Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Films set in ancient Egypt
Films set in the 13th century BC
Films shot in California
Films shot in Los Angeles, California
Films shot in San Francisco, California
Religious epic films
Silent films in color
Ten Commandments
Depictions of Moses






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This page was last modified on 18 February 2015, at 13:53.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ten_Commandments_(1923_film)