The Ten Commandments (1956) on Netflix
A Hebrew infant is set adrift on the Nile and found by Bithiah, a pharaoh's daughter, who raises him as the prince Moses. He grows into a general who loves Nefretiri.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Pharaoh Rameses I hears a prophecy that a Hebrew will deliver his people from bondage and orders the killing of all newborn Hebrew boys. Yochabel hides her infant son in a basket on the Nile; the widowed princess Bithiah discovers him and adopts him as her own, naming him Moses, and her servant Memnet sees that the child is Hebrew. Moses becomes a general who defeats Ethiopia, and he loves the princess Nefretiri, who is promised to the man Sethi names as heir. At the site of Sethi's jubilee city, Moses encounters Joshua, a stonecutter, who speaks of the God of the Hebrews, and he rebukes Baka, the master builder. Moses lightens the slaves' work, and prince Rameses accuses him of plotting insurrection.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Ten Commandments (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Cecil B. DeMille had a heart attack after climbing the 107-foot-tall Egyptian pylon set to watch one of John P. Fulton's special-effects shots; doctors told him to rest, but he wanted to return and took medication instead.
- The parting of the Red Sea, called the most difficult special effect up to that time, took eight months of VistaVision filming and $1 million; Paramount built a water tank split by a U-shaped trough and released about 360,000 gallons of water, then printed the footage in reverse.
- DeMille saw Yul Brynner starring in The King and I on Broadway, went backstage, told him the film's story from Rameses' point of view, and offered him the role.
- Edward G. Robinson, blacklisted in Hollywood over his former political leanings, was cast by DeMille in the role of the 'quisling who fights Moses all the way through the picture,' despite someone thinking he could not be hired.
- Heston's newborn son Fraser was cast as the Baby Moses on Henry Wilcoxon's suggestion right after Heston told DeMille his wife Lydia was pregnant; Fraser was three months old during filming.
- DeMille refused the Egyptian government's offer to turn the Gates of Per-Rameses into a museum and instead ordered the set demolished because he knew other production companies would use it.
- DeMille admired Yvonne De Carlo's gray eyes but told her Sephora required brown contact lenses; she could not keep them from popping out, so he let her appear with her natural eye color, calling it a God-given treasure.
- A team of ten designers planned 25,000 costumes, and 125 tailors and dressmakers took more than a year to complete them; the costumes required 300 leopard, lion, and zebra skins, 2,500 pairs of made-to-order sandals, and 40,000 yards of material.
