The Ten Commandments (1956) | |
| Director(s) | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Producer(s) | Cecil B. DeMille, Henry Wilcoxon (associate) |
| Top Genres | Adventure, Drama, Epic, Historical |
| Top Topics | Ancient World, Book-Based, Exotic Lands, Religious, Sibling Rivalry |
Featured Cast:
The Ten Commandments Overview:
The Ten Commandments (1956) was a Adventure - Drama Film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and produced by Cecil B. DeMille and Henry Wilcoxon.
SYNOPSIS
For DeMille's last picture, Hollywood's undisputed master of the cast-of-thousands epic pulled out all the stops, topping even his 1923 silent telling of the Exodus story. Heston, in a role that became his signature, gives a highly charged performance as Moses, the Hebrew who became an Egyptian prince and then led his people out of slavery, and there isn't a false note in the production. The parting of the Red Sea, an effect that manages to remain glorious even in our age of computer graphics, was accomplished by massive amounts of water being poured into a tank and then reversed (the effects took the Oscar). The 35th anniversary video edition features an uncut 245-minute version, with Dolby stereo sound and an on-screen introduction by DeMille. The collector's edition includes a signed card from Heston.
(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).
.The Ten Commandments was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1999.
Academy Awards 1956 --- Ceremony Number 29 (source: AMPAS)
| Award | Recipient | Result |
| Best Art Direction | Art Direction: Hal Pereira, Walter H. Tyler, Albert Nozaki; Set Decoration: Samuel M. Comer, Ray | Nominated |
| Best Cinematography | Loyal Griggs | Nominated |
| Best Costume Design | Edith Head, Ralph Jester, John Jensen, Dorothy Jeakins, Arnold Friberg | Nominated |
| Best Film Editing | Anne Bauchens | Nominated |
| Best Picture | Cecil B. DeMille, Producer | Nominated |
BlogHub Articles:
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1923)
By Dan Day, Jr. on May 31, 2025 From The Hitless Wonder Movie BlogI've mentioned a few posts ago how I had been reading Scott Eyman's EMPIRE OF DREAMS, a biography of Cecil B. DeMille. Ironically last month Edward R. Hamilton Booksellers had on sale the Paramount DVD of DeMille's silent 1923 version of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, a version I had not yet seen. Being in a... Read full article
The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)
By Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop ButtonWhile Yul Brynner easily gives the best performance in Ten Commandments, until the second half of the movie Anne Baxter gives the most amusing one. She's an Egyptian princess and she's going to marry the next pharaoh. The next pharaoh is either Brynner or Charlton Heston. Cedric Hardwicke ... Read full article
The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)
By Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop ButtonWhile Yul Brynner easily gives the best performance in Ten Commandments, until the second half of the movie Anne Baxter gives the most amusing one. She's an Egyptian princess and she's going to marry the next pharaoh. The next pharaoh is either Brynner or Charlton Heston. Cedric Hardwicke ... Read full article
The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)
on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop ButtonWhile Yul Brynner easily gives the best performance in Ten Commandments, until the second half of the movie Anne Baxter gives the most amusing one. She's an Egyptian princess and she's going to marry the next pharaoh. The next pharaoh is either Brynner or Charlton Heston. Cedric Hardwicke ... Read full article
The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil B. DeMille)
on Apr 7, 2019 From The Stop ButtonWhile Yul Brynner easily gives the best performance in Ten Commandments, until the second half of the movie Anne Baxter gives the most amusing one. She's an Egyptian princess and she's going to marry the next pharaoh. The next pharaoh is either Brynner or Charlton Heston. Cedric Hardwicke ... Read full article
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Quotes from
[in humor]
Joshua: They told me you were dead.
Lilia: To all I love, I am dead, Joshua.
Joshua: Dathan?
Lilia: Dathan.
Joshua: Of your own free will?
Lilia: Of my own free will.
Joshua: You are no man's slave! The hour of deliverance has come!
Lilia: Not for me, Joshua.
Nefretiri: [Nefretiri is sorting through various veils and scarves] This is for the temple ceremony... this is for my wedding night!
Memnet: You will never wear it.
Nefretiri: [surprised] Why not?
Memnet: I have brought you a cloth more revealing... send them away.
Nefretiri: [nodding to her servants] Go then, while I hear what this puckered old persimmon has to say.
Memnet: For thirty years, I have been silent. Now, all the kings of Egypt, cry out to me, from their tombs, "Let no Hebrew sit upon our throne."
Nefretiri: What are you saying?
Memnet: Rameses has the blood of many kings.
Nefretiri: And Moses?
Memnet: He is lower than the dust. Not one drop of royal blood flows through his veins. He is the son of Hebrew slaves.
Nefretiri: I'll have you torn into so many pieces, even the vultures wont find them. Who hatched this lie? Rameses?
Memnet: Rameses does not know... yet.
Nefretiri: You will repeat this to Bithiah.
Memnet: Bithiah drew a slave child, from the Nile, called him son and Prince of Egypt, blinding herself to the truth and the pain of an empty womb.
Nefretiri: Were you alone, with, Bithiah?
Memnet: A little girl led me to the Hebrew woman, Yochabel, that the child might be suckled by his true mother.
Nefretiri: Take care, old frog. You croaked too much, against Moses!
Memnet: Would you mingle the blood of slaves, with your own?
Nefretiri: He will be my husband. I shall have no other.
[Memnet then shows Nefretiri the Hebrew cloth, she had been kept hidden, for thirty years. Memnet got it, when she and Bithiah, were alone]
Memnet: Then, use this, to wrap your firstborn. Torn from a Levite's robe. It was Moses' swaddling cloth.
Nefretiri: And your shrowd. Do you think I care whose son he is?
Memnet: Rameses ca
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Facts about
The film is usually very slightly edited for TV transmission, although because of numerous and lengthy commercial breaks, most showings clock in at close to four-and-a-half hours. Its length is 3:40, three hours and 40 minutes, commercial-free and continuous on two DVD's. This has led to some humorists commenting as if it had been "trimmed to seven commandments".
One day in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, a casting director for this film approached Jack Peters and his son Jon Peters to ask if Jon wanted to appear in the film, as multitudes of people with dark hair and complexions were needed to cross the Red Sea. Jon was chosen to ride a donkey and lead a goat by rope. He was so excited that he refused to wash off the makeup, when he went home, that night, so he would not have to put it back on the next day.
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