Ten Commandments

Ten Commandments

What is the first movie you remember? For my generation, it was probably something like Star Wars, Willy Wonka, or one of the Disney cartoons. Is it weird that the first movie I remember is Ten Commandments? This probably explains my love of epics from a very early age, and also my tendency to be, err, over-dramatic from time to time. But seriously, my earliest cinematic memories are of this film and its epic grandeur. But I had not seen the film in at least 15 years, so when the Blu Ray arrived, I was a bit worried. Even in my memory, I could look back and see how cheesy the movie was in some places, how ridiculous, and over-the-top. I was a bit worried about confirming all that when I re-watched the movie, and potentially ruining a childhood memory.

Having now watched it again, I can confirm that The Ten Commandments is indeed cheesy, ridiculous, and over-the-top. And yet, in spite of that - or maybe because of it - The Ten Commandments works. It is actually deserving of both its reputations, as one of cinema's greatest epics, and also has one of the greatest cheesy films ever. It is rare that the film succeeds at both so brilliantly.

For those who don't know the story: In Ancient Egypt, omens alert the priests that a prophet is coming who would someday free the Hebrew slaves of Goshen. Taking no chances, Pharoah orders all the Jewish newborns killed. One mother rescues her own son by setting him in a basket on the Nile, hoping he will float to safety. Fate brings his basket to the palace, where he is picked up by Pharoah's daughter (Nina Foch, Spartacus), who is conveniently infertile and decides to raise the baby as her own, naming him Moses. Moses (played as an adult by Charlton Heston from Ben Hur) is brought up as an Egyptian prince and even becomes a rival to Pharoah's son, Rameses (Yul Brynner, The King and I). He is certainly favored by the current Pharoah (Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Suspicion) and his ward Nefertiri (Anne Baxter, All About Eve), who likes to over-dramatically swoon whenever Moses' name is mentioned.

Of course, Moses discovers his true heritage and this leads him on his path to becoming the spokesman of God, leading him to confront the Egyptians for his people's freedom and acting as the conduit for all sorts of miracles, including the awe-inspiring parting of the Red Sea.

Named as one of AFI's Top Ten Epics, The Ten Commandments certainly lives up to the word. Everything about this movie is Big, with a capital B. The sets are expansive, the costumes glorious, the music score by Elmer Bernstein is massive, and there are over 10,000 extras in the film. Yeah, you read that right. 10,000! Like all epics, the running time is a bit on the long side, as well, but I think it is a testament to DeMille's direction that the film never really feels slow. He keeps things moving at a lively pace, especially in the first half.

When talking about what makes The Ten Commandments entertaining, you also can't underestimate the cheese factor. The cheese is just as epic as the rest of the movie. The most hilarious example for me is in the physical acting. DeMille instructed his actors to not act naturally, but to be very theatrical. And I am assuming he ordered them all to pose constantly. It is incredible to watch almost every line reading in the film accompanied by arms being crossed, an arching of the back, or a foot dramatically lifting onto a step. This would make a wonderful drinking game!

Even the piety is The Ten Commandments is cheesy. Most religious epics bog down when religion enters the picture - those scenes always become overly talky and deadly serious - perhaps because filmmakers were worried about upsetting parents. A good example of this is The Robe, which moves along at a good pace until Richard Burton sneaks into the woods and watches a church gathering that seems to go for seventeen hours. Then St. Peter joins the group and proceeds to give a speech that I think is about as long as the Bible itself. In contrast, the piety of The Ten Commandments is more of the over-the-top variety - when Moses parts the Red Sea, an old man yells, "God opens the sea with a blast of his nostrils!"

In fairness, not all the religious stuff is silly. Some of it is indeed serious, but DeMille keeps these moments focused, character-driven, and not overly preachy - which I think is a big reason why The Ten Commandments is still watched by everyone, while films like The Robe and Quo Vadis are only seen by fans of the genre. There is also a more subtle religious thread in the film - I got the impression that both Moses and Rameses are atheists in the beginning. There seems to be a bit of cynicism when faith is mentioned and a lot of lines include something like, "if there is a God." Most intriguing and ironic to me is that later in the film, it is the strength of Moses' newfound faith that eventually pushes Rameses to start believing in his own gods. That's interesting material, and deeper than I would have expected.

Not to say The Ten Commandments doesn't have its problems. Despite the fact that all the memorable scenes are in the second half of the film, I feel this is when the movie begins to break down, narratively. The first half is terrific, focusing on Moses' years as an Egyptian prince. As I mentioned before, the pace is smooth and moves along briskly, leading all the way to when Moses finds the Burning Bush. 

Then we have intermission. And then I'm not sure what happens. I think DeMille loses interest in showing a story. Instead, he fills in narrative gaps with badly written narration, that he delivers himself in flowery and over-the-top language. DeMille may be a fine director, but he should not be narrating. The bouncing around certainly hurts the all important confrontations between Moses and Pharaoh - Brynner and Heston exchange their lines with powerful gusto, but the plot at this point leaves me with so many questions that I am distracted from their awesome fury. There are some basic common sense questions: Why do the Egyptians keep letting this guy just waltz into the palace? Aren't there guards? After continuously embarrassing Pharaoh in front of his court and his son, don't you think they would stop letting him in? The most egregious example of this is when Pharaoh enters part of his palace to perform a religious rite and Moses is already in there, waiting for him, posing melodramatically. How the heck did he get there?!

The problem is there is no narrative flow. We just bounce from iconic moment to iconic moment to iconic moment. While these scenes in of themselves work really well, it kills the storyline. And having DeMille bridging the gap by saying, "and then Moses went up the mountain and the people freaked out and decided to build a golden calf" doesn't work. That's not drama. That's a Sunday School lecture.

What salvages the second half is the Epicness. The costumes, the cast of thousands, and especially the committed performances by a great cast all see us through the spotty storytelling and carry us triumphantly to the end.

All in all, The Ten Commandments may not be perfect, but my childhood memories are not damaged in the least. I now notice all the flaws in the film, but I also recognize what makes it great. I would recommend you revisit it. You will laugh because of the cheese, but you'll also be impressed by the sheer Epicness of it all. It is definitely one of the classics.

BEST LINE:

At some point, said by almost everyone in the film: "So let it be written. So let it be done."

MVP:

I know it should be DeMille or Heston, but I can't help it - Yul Brynner is my MVP. Even as a kid, I was amazed by the performance. He is a superb villain - cocky, powerful, devious. Most importantly, he never gets blown off the screen by Heston's righteous fury, which can be overwhelming. Rameses vs. Moses needs to be a confrontation of titans, two stubborn and powerful men who will not yield. That is where the drama comes from, and if Rameses had been any weaker, the film would not have worked.

There are also other reasons why Brynner gets the win. He does the best job of handling the hammy lines, for one thing. Every actor has at least one line that they can't save despite their best efforts (the best example being Baxter's "Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!"). Since he needs to be petty and conniving, Brynner is saddled with a dozen of these lines and each one comes out believable and awesome. It's only later that you notice that, "hey, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right!" Combine that with the fact that Brynner also gets many of the movie's best lines, plus an excellent character arc that Brynner nails, and some of the movie's best costumes, and you have a clear MVP.

I know everyone points to The King and I or The Magnificent Seven as Brynner's best work, but they should revisit his role here - he really is one of epic cinema's awesome bad guys.

OSCARS: Best Special Effects

OSCAR NOMINATIONS: Best Picture, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Sound Recording.

TRIVIA:

Oh, where to begin? This movie is full of interesting trivia. I think a cool one might be that Audrey Hepburn almost played Nefertiri, but some studio exec thought she was too skinny for the part. I think this actually worked out for the best. I love Hepburn, but I think she probably would have played the role straight and Nefertiri needs to have a little crazy hamminess to her - something Baxter had a lot of fun with. I suppose the other problem would be that if Moses had rejected a Nefertiri played by the luminous Hepburn, the audience would have never forgiven him - making Moses the bad guy in his own movie!!! That's my two cents...

Crossfire Trail

Crossfire Trail

It might be time to give up in defeat. The Western is dead on movie screens. There was a time when dozens of Westerns came out every year, a time when every major actor had to have his turn at the genre. The Western was in many ways America's quintessential genre - no one else had them. It was our history, our West, our legends. For whatever reason, people stopped caring and Westerns stopped making money. Oh, there have been attempts over the years to get the genre moving again, but I can count the attempts on my two hands. In the last decade, I think only 3:10 to Yuma really did much business, though that is probably only because it starred Russell Crowe and a post-Batman Christian Bale.

Here's the strange thing. I do think there is still an audience for Westerns out there, despite what the studios think. And the network TNT apparently agreed as they pumped some real cash into making a series of highly acclaimed and well-received Westerns with Tom Selleck, Monte Walsh, Last Stand at Sabre River, and Crossfire Trail, which was my mom's favorite of the bunch. And I'll be honest - that is why I am reviewing Crossfire Trail first!

Based on a book by Louis L'amour, Crossfire Trail is the story of Rafe Covington (Tom Selleck) who promises a dying friend, Charles Rodney, that he will watch over his ranch and his wife back in Wyoming. As soon as he arrives at the ranch, it becomes clear that something hinky is going on. The ranch is abandoned, and everyone in town believes that Charles Rodney had died over a year earlier in a Sioux ambush. Seeing as how Charles died in Rafe's arms, on a boat off the coast of San Francisco, this all sounds mighty suspicious. After this intriguing initial setup, we then move over to a well-worn Western plot about the innocent widow (Virginia Madsen, Sideways), the ruthless gunslinger (Brad Johnson, Always) and the evil businessman (Mark Harmon, NCIS) who wants his hands on the valuable ranch.

Crossfire Trail proves that in capable hands - in this case, director Simon Wincer (Lonesome Dove) and star Selleck - even an oft-told story can still be entertaining when well executed. But sometimes it just gets to be a bit too much. Madsen is terrific as the widow Anne, but her budding romance with Rafe is not believable and only exists because that is what the plot demands. And the villains are just too cliche and one-sided, which is an special pity for Mark Harmon, a gifted actor who just can't save how his character is written. There are a few other minor complaints I have, including some cheesy moments involving other townspeople that just don't ring true - mostly characters again behaving not as they should, but in the way the plot demands. I also have to throw a special complaint to the makeup department because they saddled Wilford Brimley (Cocoon) with a huge wig that turns him into a rifle-firing combination of David Crosby and Santa Claus.

But that is getting the bad out of the way. There is a lot of good in the film. While the villains don't quite work, but Rafe's trio of allies, played by Brimley, Christian Kane (Leverage), and David O'Hara (Braveheart), are an entertaining bunch. And director Wincer has a good eye for the West and Crossfire Trail feels real and lived in. And he accomplishes the most important personal thing for me in Westerns - he gives me a good gunfight at the end!

And then there is Selleck. An underrated actor who unfortunately never hit the big time in feature films, Selleck might be one of the few performers who can pull off an old school Western tough guy today. He is very much acting in the mold of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Randolph Scott, and if he is not as iconic as those actors, he is still rides and shoots with the best of them. He looks like he was born in the saddle. The western genre lifestyle suits him.

There is something else I like about Rafe and the way Selleck plays him. They ignore one of those "cardinal rules" of film school. Film school drives home the lesson that major characters need to have a story arc, they need to learn something or else why would anyone want to watch the movie? I generally agree with that statement, but sometimes these character arcs can hurt a movie when they are forced upon a character who doesn't need change. Do you think Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name had to learn anything or have any sort of wishy-washy personal awakening? Of course not, and if Sergio Leone had included that gibberish, then he would have ruined his amazing westerns (such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly). Like the Man with No Name, Rafe Covington doesn't need to learn anything. He knows who he is and what he can do. More importantly, the audience knows who he is and what he can do. And we don't want to see him learn anything. We just want him to go to town and kick some butt.

Overall, Crossfire Fire is an entertaining, old fashioned Western. It breaks no new ground, but then again, it doesn't really want to. And with Selleck leading the way, it is pretty entertaining. And given the film's success on TV, it should make the big studios wonder if there is an audience for Westerns after all.

MVP:

Tom Selleck, clearly. He may not ride as tall as the giants (Wayne, Eastwood, etc.), but he might be the closest and most believable Western actor we have today. And he carries this film through its rough patches and makes me want to watch his other TNT westerns.

I want to give a quick special honorable to Barry Corbin who plays the town's corrupt sheriff - he has the probably the funniest moment in the entire movie, during the final shootout. Granted, this is more of a MVP moment, but I think its worth mentioning.

BEST LINE:

Rock Mullanny: A Frenchman, a German, and an Irishman all walk into a bar. Each of them order a bottle of whiskey with a fly in each one. The Frenchman says, "Mon dieu, I cannot drink this!" So he gives it back. The German picks out the fly and drinks the whiskey anyway. The Irishman grabs the fly by the throat and says, "Spit it out! Spit it out!!"