The Ten Commandments (1923) on Netflix
Moses leads the Israelites from Egypt and receives the Commandments on Mount Sinai. In San Francisco, John and Dan McTavish choose opposite paths, Dan vowing to break every one.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb6.8/103,019 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Plot summary
Two parts. The first retells the Book of Exodus: Moses brings the Israelites out of Egypt across the Red Sea and climbs Mount Sinai, where the Commandments appear as writing in the sky and he carves them into stone tablets. The second is set in San Francisco. Martha McTavish raises her sons John and Dan on the Commandments. John becomes a carpenter and lives by them; Dan calls himself an atheist, vows to break every one, and is evicted from the house. At a lunch wagon Dan meets Mary Leigh, a poor young woman who steals a bite of his sandwich. She takes refuge in the McTavish house, where John persuades his mother to take her in and introduces her to Dan, who wins her over. Martha's strict Sabbath keeping causes friction when the pair dance on a Sunday.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Ten Commandments (1923)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The parting of the Red Sea was shot in Seal Beach, California, and created by slicing a slab of Jell-O in two, filming it close up as it jiggled, and combining that with live-action footage of Israelites walking into the distance.
- The Ten Commandments' set was said to be the largest exterior set ever built, with four 35 ft Pharaoh statues, 21 sphinxes, gates 110 feet high and 1,600 workers; rumor said it was dynamited and buried, but wind, rain and sand at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes likely buried it instead.
- Cecil B. DeMille let the public pick his next subject: a Los Angeles Times contest offering $1,000 for the best idea drew thousands of letters, the first time a filmmaker asked the public for ideas. The prize went to F. C. Nelson, a lubricant manufacturer whose letter began, "You cannot break the Ten Commandments, they will break you."
- The buried statues and sphinxes sit roughly where they were during filming; in 2012 archaeologists uncovered a prop sphinx's head, and a 2014 excavation found a second, better-preserved sphinx. The hunt was the subject of a 2016 documentary, The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille.
- China banned the film in the 1930s under a category of "superstitious films," citing its religious subject matter involving gods and deities.
- The Ten Commandments was the highest-grossing film of 1923, and its box-office returns held Paramount's revenue record for 25 years until other DeMille films broke it.
