SEAL BEACH : Bible Scene Filmed on a Wind and a Prayer

The first commandment of filmmaking is to stay on budget.

And since transporting a cast of thousands to the Holy Land can send costs skyward, location managers chose Seal Beach as the setting for the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 silent version of “The Ten Commandments.”

Although little is known today about how Seal Beach was selected as the site where the Hebrews would escape the Pharaoh’s oncoming armies, local film historians speculate that more than just finances may have influenced the decision. According to historian Jim Sleeper, the choice probably had something to do with which way the wind blows.

Moses, played in the film by Theodore Roberts, parted the waters with a “strong east wind,” according to biblical texts. Easterly winds are an occasional phenomenon in Seal Beach, though there have been no reliable reports of the ocean splitting on their account.

When the film’s Red Sea sequence began shooting on June 13, 1923, the winds weren’t cooperating, according to Sleeper’s book. So when 600 extras posing as Israelites, a U.S. cavalry regiment doubling as Egyptian charioteers and 200 cattle--as themselves--arrived at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, man had to step in for the proper effect: The wind machines were switched on.

The filming took about a week but apparently caused few ripples in the bustling oceanside city.

“The town didn’t think that much about it, as I remember,” said longtime Seal Beach resident Frank Curtis, 99. Curtis, who worked as a carpenter at the time, commuted to Long Beach every day on the Red Car and said he never got a chance to watch the filming.

“I never saw the movie either,” he added.