Since seeing The Ten Commandments as a young girl, Katherine Orrison has been a fan of the film and director Cecil B. DeMille, even writing a book about the making of the movie. Today, she provides commentary on a special new DVD release of the classic.
From its annual television broadcasts to its regular repackaging on home video, The Ten Commandments is not only one of the biggest hit movies of all time, it is also one of the most enduring. But what many people don't know is that the famous Charlton Heston-starring movie, like a number of other 1950s Bible epics, was actually a remake of a 1920s silent film.
A new DVD, releasing today, aims to fill that gap. Marking the remake's 50th anniversary, both films have been combined in a three-disc package. The first two discs are identical to the "special edition" of the 1956 version that was released two years ago; but the third disc marks the first time that the 1923 version—half of which tells the story of the Exodus, the other half of which is a morality play set in the "modern" era—has ever been released on DVD.
How did you get into this line of work, writing about Cecil B. DeMille and his films?
Katherine Orrison: When I was nine years old, I went to see The Ten Commandments in my small hometown, and I was absolutely blown away. We all talked about it at school, and I went to see it twice that week. It started me on a love of Cecil B. DeMille movies, and when I came out to California and I was studying acting, I had a friend who was taking personal voice lessons from Henry Wilcoxon, the producer of The Ten Commandments. I said, "Oh, I want to meet him; I'm the biggest fan." I went to dinner with him and my friend, and during dinner, he said, "I'm looking for someone to write my autobiography." And I said, "I'm the person! I'm the person! Nobody but me!"
Charlton Heston is the prototypical Moses
So I worked with him for two and a half years on his autobiography. After he passed away, I interviewed all of his family and friends, and I completed the book [Lionheart in Hollywood] and published it, and everyone came to me and said that their favorite chapters were the chapters on The Ten Commandments. And I said, "Well, that's interesting, because he had a lot of information about it." We watched it 20 times while I was with him. We would stop the tape and he would tell me stories and I could ask questions. Through him I was able to meet the people who worked in the costuming department, people who acted in it, people who were in the sound department, just on and on. And I thought, I've got to do something with all this, and that's when I sat down and I wrote Written in Stone.
On some DVDs, commentaries sometimes use clips of interviews with filmmakers from many years ago. Do you have any recordings of Henry Wilcoxon that you might have considered using in this?
Orrison: No. Everything he did, he did just to me. A previous writer had made extensive tapes of him in an attempt to do his autobiography before I came along, and the tapes are very interesting. But because he was so aware of the historical possibilities, he censored himself on tape, and he would say, "This shouldn't be on the tape," and the tape would be cut off. Whereas when he and I were talking, it was a conversational thing, and I don't think he counted on my memory being as strong as it is. And he would say things like, "Mr. DeMille was looking at William Boyd [a.k.a. Hopalong Cassidy] to play Moses instead of Charlton Heston." He didn't say that on the tapes, I noticed, because he felt that that would be taking away from Charlton Heston. But I think that only enhances it. It's fascinating to find out who he was thinking about and why he chose Charlton Heston, or why he chose Yvonne DeCarlo. But Henry was of a different mind. He also had been cautioned by DeMille to never tell anybody how the special effects were done, and in this day and age, that is what people are so fascinated by.
Between the two versions of The Ten Commandments, which is your favorite?
Orrison: Definitely the sound version. It's always going to have my heart. But I'm hoping that what comes across in my commentary on the silent version is my love of silent film. I think people dismiss it, and they say oh it doesn't have sound so it can't be any good, and I think that's a hundred percent wrong. I think sound film and silent film are two different arts. And something that works in a silent film won't necessarily work in a sound one, and vice versa. But silent film is universal. You don't need to speak the language to know what's happening. And if you can tell a movie visually, that's what movies are all about.
In preparing your commentary, how do you choose what to focus on? On one hand, you can talk about how the movie was made and all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff. On another level, you can also talk about the religious content and the significance of all that. And then of course there's the political subtext, such as the Civil Rights movement and the clash with Communism.
Orrison: I absolutely agree with you. On the DVD, is the opening shown, with DeMille coming out from behind the curtains [before the opening credits of the 1956 version]?
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Yes it is.
Orrison: When I was shown the film, I said, "Where's that opening, because I have things I want to say about that," and they said, "Oh, that's not going to be on the DVD."
What you were planning to say?
Orrison: I wanted to tell people that this was DeMille's last movie and his most successful movie, because he was putting his money where his heart was, and that he truly cared about making this movie. It wasn't a question of making a buck, it wasn't because he thought it was a fashionable thing to do; rather, in many ways, it was an unfashionable thing to do. But he wanted people to know he was very serious about this movie, that he had purposely gone to the Holy Land to film it where it had happened, that he had done extensive research.
Nobody ever began a movie that way, and no one has done it since. He wanted people to know, "I take this very seriously, this is not going to be a Hollywood salacious movie," and he wanted people to know the researchers that he had used and the texts that he had used, and that what you're going to see is to the best of our knowledge as close to the way it really was as possible.
So he really had a message he was trying to get across?
Orrison: Absolutely. And that message was that all peoples in all eras have been slaves. All of us have slavery in our background. The Greeks were slaves to the Romans, the Egyptians were slaves to the Babylonians, the Irish—which is what I am—were slaves to the English. And all people have fought to be free. And you can put men's bodies into bondage, but you can't put men's minds into bondage. They will always seek to find God and to go their own way. And the thing about the 1950s was, of course, Communism said there is no God. They completely eliminated all religion from the holy Russian empire, and I think that's why it fell. I sincerely believe that's why it couldn't last.
You also mention in your commentaries that there is also this theme that if you break the Ten Commandments, the Commandments will break you.
Orrison: That's right. And DeMille would sign his autographs that way. When he would go to the premieres of The Ten Commandments, people would ask for his autograph, and that's what he would sign. There were two autographs. There was, "See The Ten Commandments, keep the Ten Commandments." And then, "If you break the Ten Commandments, they will break you. Cecil B. DeMille." Rather than "Best regards" or "It's so nice to meet you" or "Love, Cecil B. DeMille," that is what he would sign.
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Pharaoh (Yul Brynner) shows Moses his hard heart
Why do you think the film has this enduring popularity?
Orrison: I think it's survived for a variety of reasons. I think it survives because it has something for everybody. Children can sit and watch it and just be caught up in the old-fashioned Bible story, like they're sitting at a Sunday school lesson, except it's so visual. Older people can watch it and enjoy seeing the stars of their era, in probably the best presentation possible—the florid color, the wide screen and the stereophonic sound, the beautiful score to this movie. You can hear the score without seeing the pictures and know what's happening. It's a kind of a silent movie score in that way. You don't have to be able to speak the language to know what's happening, because the actors have this wonderful 19th-century Easter-pageant presentation way of doing it. It's just fun! I'm never bored. I always see something new every time I watch it.
Do you think the silent version is still relevant today?
Orrison: Yes, I think it's very relevant. I think there's a lot to be learned from silent movies, because it's the only opportunity in history that we've had to actually go back in time and see the way people lived, thought, and behaved. We sit here in 2006, and we can actually go back to 1923 and we can see exactly how they dressed, how their houses were, what their relationships were with their family, their friends. We can see the mores of the time, and at no other time have we been able to look back a hundred years and see how people really were.
Prior to the 20th century, for a couple of decades, you had photography, but that didn't show you how people lived. They were sitting in their best clothes, they're sitting stiff, they have a bright light go off in their face, they have to sit still for three minutes to be able to take the photograph—that doesn't show you their life, it just shows you a likeness of their body at that time. But when moving pictures came in, they shot on the street, in people's houses, in public buildings; they made movies about their lives. It's a time machine, and for that reason, it's important to see what came before so that we don't make the mistakes of the past.
In your commentaries, you mention that, when you were a child, you actually put blood on your doorposts.
Orrison: Yeah, I did—lamb chops!
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Do you still do that?
Orrison: Yeah! Yes, I go and I buy a lamb chop every Passover, and I do the little lamb's blood—a couple of drops—but it's something I always do. And then I sit down and watch The Ten Commandments. It's become tradition in my household, and I know the neighbourhood thinks I'm crazy, but I did it when I was a little girl because I was so scared. I was a firstborn! And when I saw that firstborn angel coming, it terrified me. It really truly did, and I was just insistent, and Mother was horrified and she would wash it off!
You also mentioned that you live in a building that was built by DeMille in 1928.
Orrison: Yes, it was. A lot of the wonderful old buildings in Hollywood were built by the DeMille family as income property.
So what do you think he'd say if he knew that you were dabbing lamb's blood on the door every Passover, in his building?
Orrison: I think he would be very pleased! If I know him, he would be very pleased, and he would say, "Thank you for the compliment."