Even worse, the orgy sequence took three weeks to film.ĩ. During the filming of the orgy scenes, one female extra allegedly said, “Who do I have to f*** to get OUT of this movie?” according to Charlton Heston‘s autobiography. He also celebrated his 75th birthday during the production, which made him the oldest working Hollywood director at the timeĨ. He apparently only took two days off afterwards. DeMille actually suffered a heart attack during production after climbing 130 feet to check a camera on top of the giant gates used during the exodus sequence. It is a partial remake of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 silent film of the same title, which mostly took place in a modern setting.ħ. He’s known for playing masterful villains, but not biblical ones.Ħ.
If you’re a horror movie fan like I am, this is a pretty cool–and surprising-fact. That could be an entire town.ĥ. Vincent Price played the slave master Baka. And about 15,000 animals were used in the film.Ĥ.
All of the animals in the movie are real. The biblical text actually says: “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb” (Exodus 3:1). Joshua and Sephora are with him when he discovers it, and Joshua says, “A bush that burns?” Which, you know, means he sees it too. Isn’t it the point that Moses saw the burning bush himself–and without trying to seek it out, per se? The sad thing is? His part in the movie is basically made up, because there is no actual record of him going to Midian in order to get Moses to, you know, find God on the mountain.Ģ.
Like, how did I miss this the first nine times around?! Joshua, played by actor John Derek, was pretty hunky in the movie. This year, I decided to rewatch some of my favorite scenes–below are some of my observations and/or interesting facts I found out after researching the film:ġ. Personally, I’ve seen this movie at least half a dozen times–which means I’m basically an informal expert.īack when I was in Catholic school (yes, that actually happened…and yes, I’m glad it’s over), my religion teachers would always turn on the movie right in time for Passover/Easter in order to give us some biblical history lessons (and have some quiet time). Now that it’s officially Passover season, it’s time to rewatch (or watch for the first time!) “ The Ten Commandments.” The epic 1956 film is nearly four hours long–which means several breaks are in order, especially if you’re watching with the kids.