The Ten Commandments (Special Collector's Edition)
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DVD details
Actor: Anne Baxter, Donald Curtis, John Carradine, Judith Anderson, Yul BrynnerPrimary Contributor: Yul Brynner
Primary Contributor: Charlton Heston
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 220 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-03-09
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of The Ten Commandments (Special Collector's Edition)
DVD Review: A Bible film even we atheists can like!
Summary: 5 Stars
In the begining, deMille created a silent film. And it was good. But lo! It lacked color, it lacked sound and it lacked the great Heston. So deMile created "The Ten Commandments" anew, and saw that it was good, said that it was good, and it was... really quite corking, actually.
"The Ten Commandments" really only features said laws towards the end of the movie, but that's ok because as they say, getting there is half the fun. The movie is a spectacle on a grand scale, with huge sets, a cast of literally thousands, location filming in Egypt, beautiful costumes and a 1950's mentality that meant they had to sanitize quite a bit of the actual story.
The tale the movie tells is one known to most people. The Hebrews are living as slaves in Egypt until God tells Moses (Charlton Heston), to go tell the Pharaoh (an amazingly good Yul Brenner), to let his people go. Moses does, Pharaoh tells him to get lost, and plagues happen. Eventually the innocent are murdered and Moses is allowed to take his people into the Promises Land where they will be slaves to God, instead of to Pharaoh.
`course that's just my interpretation of Exodus.
The film is specatcle of the first order, with a huge a-list of Hollywood's finest actors including Heston, Brenner, Vincent Price, Edward G Robinson, Yvone de Carlo and others. All the performances are great, particularly the two leads. Atheist though I am, even I found Heston compelling in his role as Moses.
What's most interesting, though, is some of the side stories to the movie. If you pick up a copy of the DVD, you can hear an audio commentary by a woman (I forget her name, forgive me), who obviously is a believer, as was deMille. What makes that so interesting is hearing her talk about the compromises to the Biblical story that deMille made, and justifying them to herself and the audience!
For example, she points out one scene where Moses is standing next to a black woman. That he had an Ethiopian wife is news to me (apparently I didn't read Exodus close enough), and this movie doesn't really want you to know that he did. All you see is a black woman standing next to Moses and some large black guy standing next to her looking more like a Zulu than an Ethiopian. Of course this was because we didn't want to ruffle the feathers of 1950's society by showing an interracial marriage (though apparently deMille himself was big on civil rights).
Also glossed over, and again something I missed in the Bible, is that due to Moses' stammering, Aaron actually spoke to Pharaoh. I knew he had problems talking, but I'd assumed God had just fixed that. In the movie there's no stammering and no Aaron talking to Pharaoh.
Of course the Biblical facts had to be gussied up a little for the film, in order to make the movie more, well, movie-like. But I find it interesting that people who believe in God would think it's ok to twist the stories they believe in just to make a good movie.
Anyhow, theology aside this is indeed a great film and one worthy of all the adulation it gets!
This DVD is worth every penny. You not only get the movie and the commentary mentioned above, but you also get the fascinating silent film version of the movie! A great buy!
DVD Review: Fabulous
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is so amazing. I watched it with my grandparents when it was on VHS, and now that it is on digitally remastered DVD, the color and clarity of it is amazing. Such a great movie, one to definitely share with the kids.DVD Review: A Marvelous Carnival Show.
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie influenced my childhood more than any other film---save, perhaps Gone With The Wind. Yes, it was pure ham. Yes, the story is ridiculous and over-the-top. Yes, a lot of the acting is bad. Yes, nowadays I can barely make it 20 minutes into the movie before I yawn and turn to something else. Oh, but as a 6 year-old child! It was pure magic, glorious and inspiring. Probably in all the wrong ways, of course. What I took from this fabulous spectacle as a child: it inspired my fascination with Ancient Egypt; I fell in love with Anne Baxter (maybe she was over-acting, but she oozed glamour and sensuality!), and it led me to find more, and much better films of hers, like Orson Wells' The Magnificent Ambersons; Yul Bryner exuded masculinity; he defined my image of a Pharoh (minus his butt-kicking by Moses). I could never understand what Nefretiri saw in Charlton Heston's boring old Moses, when she had bad-boy Bryner beside her the whole time! Which brings me to my point: as a Biblical lesson, De Mille's Ten Commandments is an utter failure. I always sympathized with the grand, gorgeously costumed Egyptians. To me (as a child) Moses was the villian for messing everything up. Why would anyone want to follow a ragged old Moses, always ranting and raving like a madman, into the ugly desert when Egypt looked so rich and wonderful. It never made sense why a powerful prince would want to trade all that treasure for rags and sand. It was the beginning of a trend I noticed in nearly all Biblical films from that era: the doomed pagans always seemed more attractive than the supposed good guys. The bad guys were having all the fun! Historically, of course, this film is utter hogwash...but I'll save those details for another time. It was great viewing as a child, and for those memories, I give it four stars. DVD Review: Anniversity Collection is Great
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great addition our collection of old, wonderful movies. I also found it to be a enjoyable conclusion to a small group study of the book of Exodus.DVD Review: A Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
The Ten Commandments (50th Anniversary Collection)
This DVD stands alone as the epic movie for the ages. There are some campy moments, but overall a great family movie. I have always loved this movie, and love it even more in better quality viewing!!
Description of The Ten Commandments (Special Collector's Edition)
Legendary silent film director Cecil B. DeMille didn't much alter the way he made movies after sound came in, and this 1956 biblical drama is proof of that. While graced with such 1950s niceties as VistaVision and Technicolor, The Ten Commandments (DeMille had already filmed an earlier version in 1923) has an anachronistic, impassioned style that finds lead actors Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner expressively posing while hundreds of extras writhe either in the presence of God's power or from orgiastic heat. DeMille, as always, plays both sides of the fence as far as sin goes, surrounding Heston's Moses with worshipful music and heavenly special effects while also making the sexy action around the cult of the Golden Calf look like fun. You have to see The Ten Commandments to understand its peculiar resonance as an old-new movie, complete with several still-impressive effects such as the parting of the Red Sea. --Tom KeoghGeneral DVDs
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