The Ten Commandments

Cecil B. DeMille's silent drama The Ten Commandments is built in two halves. The first recounts the biblical story of Moses, who demands that the Egyptian pharaoh free the Hebrew people, brings down plagues when he refuses, and leads the exodus across the parted waters of the Red Sea before receiving the tablets of the law on Mount Sinai. The second half jumps to the present day, following two brothers in San Francisco who are divided by their beliefs and by their feelings for the same woman. One of them, a believer like their devout mother, clashes with the other, who has no use for religion; the conflict sharpens when the construction of a cathedral is found to rest on dishonest work.

DeMille directed and produced the film, which followed his 1921 feature The Affairs of Anatol among the ten titles listed for him and preceded Madam Satan, Cleopatra and other productions. Theodore Roberts plays Moses, with Charles De Rochefort as Rameses, Estelle Taylor as Miriam and Julia Faye as the pharaoh's wife among a credited cast of 37. Made for about two million dollars by Paramount, the film runs 136 minutes and blends drama, history and fantasy. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.5 out of 10 from 94 votes. DeMille returned to the same subject in 1956.