Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1956)

DeMille's "Commandments" Profit Share To Go to DeMille Trust for Charity The Magic DeMille Blend Still There by WILLIAM R. WEAVER HERALD picture The producer's share of the profits from "The Ten Commandments" will go to the DeMille Trust, a foundation set up for charitable and educational purposes. Cecil B. DeMille, producer-director of the Paramount release, said in New York last week. Speaking at a press conference at the Hotel Plaza. Mr. DeMille said, "I do not get one dollar from the profits or gross of the picture. All I got was a salary to cover my expenses during the course of the production of the picture." He said the DeMille Trust was set up by his wife and himself two or three years ago and that the courts in Los Angeles approved it six months ago. Mr. DeMille, commenting on the three hour and 39 minute film, said, "it is the greatest human story which I have seen in my 43 years in motion pictures." The film opens at the Criterion theatre, New York, November 9 on a roadshow policytwo shows a day. Mr. DeMille added "The cost of 'The Ten Commandments' is $13,500,000, but its value is far greater. I hope that the picture can be shown behind the Iron Curtain as it is a picture which may be able to bring about an understanding among all peoples." Booking of "The Ten Commandments" by three theatres for late December openings brings to 14 the number of U. S. and Can At top: Cecil B. DeMille talks to the trade press in New York. Above, Mr. DeMille, left, talks to Barney Balaban, center. Paramount president, and Martin Quigley. adian situations that will have the DeMille film before the end of this year. Charles Boasberg, supervisor of world wide sales for the film, said there would be no additional openings until after January 1, 1957. HOLLYWOOD: Four times before now in as many distinguished decades Cecil Blount DeMille has blent scripture and spectacle magnificently. There were the first “Ten Commandments,” “The King of Kings,” “The Sign of the Cross” and “Samson and Delilah.” It has proved in all times a magic blend, wondrously received and richly rewarded by the multitude, world around. Monday night in Hollywood, under the severest test it will encounter, it proved its magic again. Monday night the new “Ten Commandments” was screened for trade press reviewers at the Paramount studio in the projection room where, in long months of closeted consideration, its original 1,000,000 feet had been trimmed to 19,710. By explicit instruction of the producer-director, who had spent more than $13,500,000 to make his production perfect, a studio that commonly surrounds with showmanly ceremonies a film costing 10 per cent as much was required to screen this one cold. It had been made, its makers said, to stand alone before all audiences everywhere, the high and the mighty, the lowly and the meek, in luxurious lounge seat and a-squat on bare heels in jungle clearing. He wanted to know if it could stand alone before the hard eyes of these tradeseasoned men and women, not unanimously DeMille-minded, and he found out that it could. They told him so in the language of sheer silence — 219 minutes of total, rapt silence — the sincerest applause of all. As the great story of Moses began to unfold on the familiar studio screen, for the second time in the lives of most journalists in attendance, there came into recognition an awareness of things that time hath wrought. Time has given VistaVision and Technicolor as new and superior tools for the hand of a DeMille whose first “Ten Commandments” is made now to seem merely to have forecast his second. And time has given the DeMille of the two “Ten Commandments” a firmer hold, a broader concept, a far deeper fervor. ( Continued from preceding page ) the things they had brought from Egypt. Here DeMille falls into the pattern of the DeMille tradition, and it becomes less credible for a brief space. But Moses meanwhile has witnessed the incredible flashes of fire with which God sears the Ten Commandments into the face of the rock. These tablets he takes with him, and with them crashes the revelers to destruction. As penance the Lord makes the people wander for forty years in the wilderness. And in the closing sequence Moses is seen turning over his staff and his robe to Joshua, telling him to proclaim liberty to the people and to lead them across the River Jordan to the Land of Promise, while he goes alone up Mount Nebo to seek his God. The earlier portions of the picture strike with a telling emotional impact, the latter sections (and an intermission divides the film) appeal more deeply perhaps to the more superficial senses, but for all and throughout, there is appeal in unbelievable degree. Here, indeed, is magnificent use of the medium of the motion picture. Here, indeed, DeMille has built a fitting capstone to a monumental career. Reviewed at a screening in New York’s Criterion theatre, where a largely professional audience was held captive, and moved to applause several times and at the conclusion. Rev'ewer’s Rating: Superior. — Charles S. Aaronson. Release date, not set. Running time, 219 minutes. PCA No. 18021. General audience classification. Moses Charlton Heston Nefretiri Anne Baxter Sephora Yvonne De Carlo Joshua John Derek Bithiah Nina Foch Memnet Judith Anderson Aaron . John Carradine Jannes Douglass Dumbrille Pentaur Henry Wilcoxon Mered Donald Curtis Amminadab H. B. Warner Rameses Yul Brynner Dathan Edward G. Robinson Lilia Debra Paget Sethi Sir Cedric Hardwicke Yochabel Martha Scott Baka Vincent Price Miriam Olive Deering A’biram . Frank DeKova Jethro Eduard Franz Ben Caleb Lawrence Dobkill Elisheba Julia Faye 20 MOTION PICTURE HERALD, OCTOBER 6, 1956