MOVIE REVIEW : Making a Production Out of a Good Book

Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” (1956) is an elephant of a movie. Maybe woolly mammoth is more apt. They don’t make them like this anymore.

There’s no way they could. Perhaps there’s no way they should.

This 219-minute religious epic--being shown tonight as part of the Saddleback College/Edwards Cinemas classics series in Mission Viejo--was intended to be the spectacular to out-spectacle all spectaculars.

It was created by a filmmaker with as much subtlety as a cataclysm, a literal-minded director far more suited to The Big View than the small one. DeMille took the Bible at face value, using it as grist for melodrama and circus pageantry: Don’t look for parable or lyricism in this bush-burner.

But do enjoy those giant gestures, both in the production and in the performances. Everyone still talks about the parting of the Red Sea (which won John Fulton the Oscar for special effects that year). The most telling example of “The Ten Commandments’ ” stupendous imagery, it sure is a grabber, especially considering the technological standards of the day. It remains the centerpiece of a picture that cost more than $13 million--a staggering amount back then.

Though it impressed moviegoers, the splashy Red Sea effects were not so respected by reviewers, some of whom thought they were unrealistic (miracles are suppose to be realistic?). Bosley Crowther of the New York Times complained that the sea bottom looked “as smooth and dry as a racetrack.”

But DeMille and his production team didn’t stop at the beach. The landscape details of the Egypt ruled by Ramses (Yul Brynner), the Exodus itself (involving more than 8,000 extras passing through a quarter-mile-long corridor of sphinxes--each with Brynner’s face) and the scenes of Moses (Charlton Heston) and his followers crossing Sinai are appropriately sweeping. DeMille infuses such key moments with the fervor of a preacher on a mission.

His actors keep in step, although they don’t overdo things quite as much as Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature in one of DeMille’s earlier Bible movies, “Samson and Delilah” (1949). Brynner and Heston’s portrayals are relatively high-minded, despite all the distractions.

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Not so Edward G. Robinson’s. Robinson plays Dathan, a Jewish traitor who has been chummy with the Egyptians but takes part in the Exodus anyway, and the character’s demagoguery becomes pure heathen hell-raising in Robinson’s hammy hands.

But the orgy scene with the golden calf--in which Dathan urges the revelers on while barely clad Israelites go wild in a feast of sensuality--is an undeniable hoot.

It’s actually a bit ironic that this movie has been praised by religious groups for so many years. In 1959, the League of United Synagogues even gave it the Torah Award for achievement, ignoring DeMille’s devotion to showmanship over substance. It proves that if there’s enough passion in the sermon, the faithful will come.

* “The Ten Commandments” (1956) by Cecil B. DeMille will be shown tonight at 7 at Edwards Crown Valley Cinema, 26862 Crown Valley Parkway, Mission Viejo. $5 and $6.50. (714) 582-4656.