Oprah Movie Club Pick for January: The Ten Commandments

1956 Biblical epic

Rating: 15/20 (Abbey: 12/20)

Plot: The story of Moses, told ad nauseum.

Sorry this installment of the Oprah Movie Club is arriving a little late. It has been a very long time since I saw this and had completely forgotten that it was told in real time like the 24 t.v. show. Seriously, Moses from his birth to his wandering off into the sunset after God told him, "Nuh uh! You ain't goin' to no promised land, Mo-fo-ses," all unfolding in real time.

I feel really bad for making my daughter watch this. I tricked her by telling her it was like an Indiana Jones movie, and then we didn't even get a shot of the Ark of the Covenant. That's right--no money shot! I thought that was a huge mistake. Abbey was confused about the overture and the guy coming from behind the curtain to chat with us at the beginning of the movie and then much much later, the intermission. I had to explain to her that going to the movies used to be a lot classier and that some of them would take up to half of a person's lifetime to watch.

Finally, there's a cool opening shot after the half hour of overtures, introductions, and opening credits. This movie's so big, and so much of it looks terrific. The colors pop, the set design is so big and expensive, and some of the special effects are very impressive. It's fun imagining a storyboard of this being shown to studio execs and having them laugh and say, "You've got to be kidding me!" The burning bush looks silly, and I know I'm probably going to hell for typing that, but it's true. You wait five hours and forty-seven minutes to see a spectacle, and that burning bush is the only reward? The snakes are a little cooler, and I liked the sanguine-ing of the river and the greenish Angel of Death mist although the latter could have been a lot cooler. That pull-back through the streets with that green smoky ooze was a cool shot though. I like what Cecil B. DeMille and his team's artistic and moody skies, but the piece de resistance is that parting of the Red Sea. Of course, the pillar of fire is weak, looking like something pulled straight from a G.I. Joe cartoon in the 80s. The obvious green screen, a random kid/master-of-the-obvious who tells everybody around him that the Red Sea has just been parted, and a guy who decides to poetically refer to God's nostrils try to take you away from the scene a little bit, but it's hard not to be impressed with the bigness of that special effect. My favorite part of it is a shot of three awe-struck women who, if he had any interest at all, Moses could have easily banged. And the Moses-standing-on-the-rock scene after the Hebrews get across is a nice movie moment. I also liked the set design for the Mount Sinai scene with God as a fire tornado and the Hebrew slaves--so many extras--showing us that they know how to party. I always liked, by the way, that they were breaking like two of the most important commandments while God was putting them on stone. But fire-stick duels, women riding men like horses, hot chick sacrificing. That's my kind of party although I really would have liked to see something closer to an orgy.

Yes, there's a ton of memorable scenes and fantastic imagery in the second half of the movie. The problem is that you have to wade through over five hours of character development to get there. You get an hour long scene of Moses talking to some sheep, and then they skim over two-thirds of the plagues? I wanted to see a frog rainstorm and cattle implosion or whatever else was in there. Sure, they mention "all manner of plagues," but we don't get to see them. And there's a lot of stagy acting with miscast actors. I do like Yul Brynner as Rameses and, of course, Vincent Price as Baka, but Ian Keith was pretty awful as Rameses' dad and Edward G. Robinson looked like he couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing there. Anne Baxter's a little hottie, at least from certain angles, as Nefretiri, and I nudged Abbey at one point to tell her that I wouldn't mind using Nefretiri as my footstool before realizing she was not the right audience for that. For the most part, it seems like everybody in this is just playing dress up. Charlton Heston wasn't a terrible Moses though. In fact, he's very convincing as Baby Moses, and I wasn't even sure it was him there. He's good as Old Man Moses, too, as he looked more and more like a crazy messenger of God. He gets to say all kinds of cool Moses things in that strong voice of his.

A question: Why does Aaron do all the stuff with the staff? Moses is holding the staff, and he's the voice of God and all, so shouldn't he get to do the magic tricks? But every time, he hands the staff to his brother. Did I miss something when I was fast-forwarding over a scene where Yul Brynner looks pensive for 25 minutes?

Is it just me or does it seem like every time the narrator comes in, it almost seems like he had to be awakened to read his lines?

There are a couple performers who steal scenes with small performances. First, there's Rameses's kid played by Eugene Mazzola, a bad child actor. "Mother, he turned a staff into a cobra." Mazzola's also in Terror in a Texas Town, that Western featuring a gun vs. harpoon show-down at the end. There's also a slave who dies in the mud, and his reaction to being whipped was awesome. Oh, and an old lady who says, "The Chariot! Ahh! Run for your lives!" It's great enough on its own, but I loved the little pose she struck afterward.

Did you know that Herb Alpert is in this movie, a drummer during the Mount Sinai scene? Not sure if the Tijuana Brass is in there. If they were, I might have gotten that orgy that I wanted!

Another question: What's the jackal and hound game they're playing in this? It looked like a blast.

Oh, another question: How many extras do you think were killed during the erection of the obelisk scene? That just didn't look safe.

So there are many spectacular moments in this Biblical epic, but that burning bush should have been in the first fifteen minutes of the movie. If I ever watch it again, that's probably where I'll start it anyway.

Too bad DeMille died after this one. I would have really enjoyed seeing a five-hour version of that story about Jesus meeting the little guy in the tree.