The Ten Commandments (1923)

Apparently there's such a thing as "Silent Film Day", which was back in September. TCM ran a bunch of silent movies, many of which I hadn't seen before, so I recorded them. I've already posted on Scaramouche and The Pilgrim out of that batch of films. One of the other movies TCM ran that day was Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 version of The Ten Commandments, which surprisingly I hadn't seen until now. With it about to expire from my DVR, I watched it to do a post here.

One of the things I didn't know about this version is that it's really two movies in one. When you think of The Ten Commandments, you probably (like I do) think about the biblical book of Exodus with Moses parting the Red Sea to get the commandments from God on Mount Sinai and all that stuff. It's the entirety of the more famous 1956 movie, if memory serves. In the silent version, it's more of a prologue to a modern-day story, only taking up the first third of the movie.

That said, the "prologue" is pretty spectacular by the standards of 1923. Supposedly DeMille used Technocolor for some of the sequences, although having gone through the print TCM ran, I couldn't find them. I woulnd't be surprised if this is another of those partially Technicolor movies where only the black-and-white elements survived. Presumably you know the whole story of the Biblical exodus, so there's not a whole lot to mention here in terms of plot since the modern-day storyline is enough for a full-length post of its own.

At the beginning of the prologue, there's a quote about how the western world stopped paying heed to the wisdom of the commandments, and that's what brought about the Great War, the movie having been made only about four years after the end of the war. It's high time we got back to a more upright way of living, and DeMille wants to show the consequences of what would happen in the modern day to someone who completely disregards "the LAW".

That someone is Dan McTavish (Rod LaRocque), brother of John (Richard Dix). They're both the sons of the very pious widow Martha. She insists that everybody in her house live by the Commandments, and is frankly bigoted about it. John is the "good" son, trying to live correctly, becoming a carpenter and would-be architect, but not able to make all that much of a living. Dan decides he's going to make it to the top by hook or by crook, although being a man he doesn't have to sleep his way to the top like Barbara Stanwyck in Baby Face.

Dan does become rich as a general contractor, but his disregard for "the LAW" bothers his mother. Things get particularly bad when lovely but hungry Mary (Leatrice Joy) steals part of his sandwich. She escpaes, but it's actually into Mrs. McTavish's home. Mary and Dan fall in love, but they make the big mistake of dancing on Sunday (horror of horrors!), causing Mom to throw Dan out of the house. Dan and Mary decide now is a good time to get married.

But Dan can't be bothered to be faithful to Mary, carrying on an affair with the mysterious "Eurasian" (as they called mixed-race Asian/Europeans in those days) woman named Sally (Nita Naldi). At the same time, Dan's company has gotten a contract to build a major cathedral, which Dan thinks will allow him to get back in his mom's good graces. But she still doesn't want his dirty money, so he hires John so that John's money can pay for those good things.

Of course, Dan is putting way too sand into the concrete, trying to cut costs. When John learns about this, he's absolutely horrified and just knows that the building is going to collapse, which is going to lead to a spectacular disaster. Well, not as spectacular as the effects in the prologue, but you know that there's going to be a major disaster in the making. There's also a whole lot of melodrama to come in the characters' personal lives.

Critics of the day gave more mixed views to the latter-day portion of The Ten Commandments, and it's easy to see why. To be honest, it's not bad, but that portion of the movie isn't particularly groundbreaking in any way either the way that the prologue is much more spectacular. In fact, the latter-day plot could have been released on its own, I think, and been a reasonably good and typical silent film. Of course, in that case, it wouldn't be so well remembered. But that second half even on its own would still be worth watching.