Source: Film School Rejects
By Meg Shields
With very few competitors, Cecil B. DeMille’s color version of The Ten Commandments remains one of the single greatest “effects pictures” of all time.
Costly and ambitious, even by DeMille’s standards, the 1956 film was an appropriately epic undertaking considering the subject matter. At the time, it was the most expensive movie ever made. In fact, the on-location shoot was so intensive that DeMille suffered a heart attack during production, a well-known “secret” that secured the picture’s status as the director’s final cinematic hurrah.
But that said, what a hurrah: who else but DeMille could produce three hours of top-of-the-line camp masquerading as Biblical paratext? They just don’t make ’em like they used to. (No, really, it’s wild how much of this movie is just Anne Baxter gnawing on the scenery and everyone being comically lusty for Moses, far and away the least charismatic character in the film).
However, amidst all of its iconic performances and jaw-dropping set-pieces, the parting of the Red Sea sequence trounces the competition. You could even say it’s … one in DeMilleion.
Wait, why are you booing?…
…Read the Full Article @ Film School Rejects