I watched it for shirtless John Derek as Joshua. Yum.
I *love *that 1935 clip of De Mille directing The Crusades, where he stops the scene and bellows, “What is that girl doing over there in a 1935 headdress?!” and goes on to scream about how he spent *millions *for historical accuracy “and they send me a girl who looks like she just walked out of a beauty parlor!”
De Mille was *so *full of shit, he was notorious for hilarious inaccuracies, but it made for a good little film clip.
I didn’t see it this year, but I’ve watched it many times, and have both it and the silent version on disc.
I’d wanted to see the film for years, as a kid, but this was before home video and – amazingly – before it was a regular holiday broadcast. I’d seen a picture from it in an ancuclopedia, and was very curious (I also saw a still from the silent version in another encyclopedia, and wanted to see that version, as well). Finally, I got to see it in a re-release, in a big movie theater, so I got the full impact. I loved it, although I recognized that it was cheesy as hell, and even then the deficiencies in the special effects were starting to show. It’s pageant, of course. My wife and daughter don’t care for it (My daughter grew up on the Spielberg animated Prince of Egypt, which is pretty good, too.) Years later, I finally saw the silent version,which i now have. I tend to skip the non-Biblical parts, though.
One of the things that really hit me when I first visited Salt Lake City was that the paintings of the ancient people of the Americas in the LDS Visitor Centers , the Nephites and Lamanites and all, all looked familiar. The paintings are the work of Arnold Friburg, and he had been a conceptual artist for The Ten Commsandments – his name is right there in the opening credits. So the interpretations of the characters from The Book of Mormon look as if they stepped out of Cecil B/. deMille’s Egypt
It’s hard to find reproductions online, but here’s a YouTube video of some:
Here’s his stuff from Ten Commandments:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A0PDoYDEKYhPF0oAh6GJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBlMTQ4cGxyBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1n?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3DArnold%2Bfriberg%2B%2522Ten%2BCommandments%2522%26_adv_prop%3Dimage%26va%3DArnold%2Bfriberg%2B%2522Ten%2BCommandments%2522%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D39&w=400&h=311&imgurl=www.fortuneart.net%2FArnoldFriberg%2FMoses_10505_f21x27.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fortuneart.net%2Fstore%2FAF_Moses.htm&size=30.9+KB&name=Christian+Art+by+Arnold+Friberg&p=Arnold+friberg+“Ten+Commandments”&oid=ccbfcddeb07827436e85c56e23c9dab1&fr2=&fr=yfp-t-701&tt=Christian%2BArt%2Bby%2BArnold%2BFriberg&b=31&ni=21&no=39&tab=organic&ts=&sigr=11cejcqvi&sigb=15csuj4kj&sigi=11nnn1or1&.crumb=G.kSrW0OssH
There was a promotional book with the art released as part of the press kit for the release of The Ten Commandments. They had a copy at Sam Weller Books in SLC. I’m sorry I never picked that up.
… yeah, that green mist put ‘the fear’ into me as a first-born kid.
One of our family lines for folks during housework: “More grease on those rollers, old woman!”
Does anyone else think the scene at the well with Jethro’s younger daughters seems like it belongs with Moonbeam McSwine in Dogpatch?
I just picked up this year from the Wikipedia article on movie that de Mille used prints of paintings by Alma-Tadema to illustrate to his scenic artists his vision for the set designs.
ETA: Philliam, I agree with you 100% “It’s a MAN!” – with “man” pronounced in two syllables.
A nitpick inaccuracy (in a movie riddled with them) that has bothered me since I was a kid:
Jethro (Moses’s soon to be father-in-law) tells Moses that his people are Midianites and that they are descendants of Abraham’s firstborn, Ishmael.
Midianites, as their name suggests, were descendants of Abraham’s son Midian(his sixth named son in the Bible, his fourth with his final wife Keturah).
I wonder if they were trying to court Muslim audiences, or if they though U.S. audiences wouldn’t know Abraham had any sons other than Ishmael and Isaac, or…?
Abraham had an Armenian son?