The Ten Commandments (R73)

The Ten Commandments was directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starred Charlton Heston in the lead role, Yul Brynner as his adoptive brother, Pharaoh Rameses II, Anne Baxter as Nefretiri, Edward G. Robinson as Dathan, Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora, Debra Paget as Lilia, and John Derek as Joshua. The supporting cast includes Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Pharaoh Seti I, Nina Foch as Bithiah, Martha Scott as Yoshebel, Judith Anderson as Memnet, Vincent Price as Baka, and John Carradine as Aaron. The film dramatised the biblical story of the Exodus, in which the Hebrew-born Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince, becomes the deliverer of the Hebrew slaves.

The Ten Commandments, which DeMille narrated, was the last film that he directed. He was set to direct the 1958 remake of his 1938 film The Buccaneer, but his final illness forced him to relinquish the directing chores to his son-in-law, actor Anthony Quinn. DeMille had also planned to film the life of Lord Baden Powell, the founder of the Scout movement, with David Niven; this project was never realized.

The Ten Commandments is partially a remake of DeMille’s 1923 silent film. Some of the cast and crew of the 1956 version worked on the original. It has since been remade again as a television miniseries broadcast in April 2006.

The Ten Commandments is one of the most financially successful films ever made, grossing over $65 million at the US box office. Adjusting for inflation, this makes it the sixth highest-grossing movie domestically, with an adjusted total of $1,025,730,000 in 2012. In 1999, The Ten Commandments was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. In June 2008, AFI revealed its “Ten Top Ten”—the best ten films in ten American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. The Ten Commandments was listed as the 10th best film in the epic genre.

The film received seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Charlton Heston was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor in the drama category. The film was also nominated for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (Hal Pereira, Walter H. Tyler, Albert Nozaki, Samuel M. Comer, Ray Moyer), Best Cinematography, Color (Loyal Griggs, A.S.C.), Best Costume Design, Color (Edith Head, Ralph Jester, John Jensen, Dorothy Jeakins and Arnold Friberg), Best Film Editing (Anne Bauchens), Best Picture and Best Sound, Recording (Loren L. Ryder).Yul Brynner won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor for his role as Rameses, along with his other roles in The King and I and Anastasia.