"The Ten Commandments" was the bigest spectacle to come out of Hollywood when it premiered in 1923. Cecil B. DeMille, the Steven Spielberg of Hollywood's silent era and many years following, used all the resources at his disposal to entertain his audiences, and this was no exception. His resources were limited, though, so instead of filming in Egypt, like he did with his spectacular 1956 remake, he had to settle for the sands of Southern California.
The 1923 version is broken down into two parts. The first part, 45 minutes or so, is a retelling of the story of Moses, beginning with the plagues on the Egyptians, and ending with him destroying the tablets on which God carved The Law. In the second part, in "modern-day" (early 1920s) San Fransisco, we find that a woman has been reading the story to her two grown sons. The two sons are more or less Cain and Abel, one who mocks God and His Law, and the other God-fearing. The mother has tried to impress upon both of them the fear of God, but, to her later regret, neglected to tell them about God's love. When the older son, the atheist, becomes a successful building contractor, he employs his younger brother, a carpenter, as his foreman on a church construction site in San Fransisco. The younger brother learns that his older brother, in a cost-cutting effort, has been using too much sand to make the bricks, resulting in tragedy. The moral is, if you break the Ten Commandments, they will break you. And the older brother broke them all, after vowing to do so earlier in the story. He probably wasn't thinking of murder at the time, but he ended up breaking that one too. A strong message, maybe preachy to us today, but a message quite needed at the time, following the carnage of WWI, and the worldwide influenza outbreak, killing millions. The contemporary part is an excellent period piece.
This film is available as a special feature on the DVD collection of the 1956 version, with a superb audio commentary by DeMille authority Katherine Orrison.
