Screenland (Oct 1923-Mar 1924)

SCREENPLAYS By 'Frederick James Smith .HE much heralded production of Cecil de Mille, The Ten Commandments, the super-super-spectacte which made the waters of the Red Sea and the Paramount production activities to stand still, delivered its message in New Yorkjust before Christmas. As far as I can see, Manhattan is pretty much unchanged at this writing, one week later. Mr. De Mille's Two Stories Ten Commandments is as definitely divided into two parts as Mr. de Mille's own Red Sea. The first half concerns itself with the bondage of the Children of Israel in Egypt. Here Mr. de Mille shows how Moses led the Israelites from the land of their captivity, how he caused the pursuing army of the Pharaoh to be halted by a pillar of fire and later engulfed in the Red Sea after its waters had parted to let his people pass dry-shod and, how, after the liberated Israelites had come to worship at the feet of false gods, the ten commandments were given to Moses on the heights of Sinai. Then the story shifts to today and traces the modern application of these ten commandments of old. Here Mr. de Mille reveals a household with a stern old mother who believes in the letter of the law in the application of the Bible to modern life. There are two sons, one a self-sacrificing, upright youth who is a carpenter, (Mr. de Mille capitalizes Carpenter and doubtless looks upon this as keen symbolism) , while the other is a youthful waster. Both the sons come to love the same girl but she marries the harem-scarem youth and the two start out to "break the ten commandments and become wealthy." <l77ze Bad Boy Gets His Just Deserts WThe Month's Best Screenplay -HE screen always sees to it that evil-doers get their deserts and here the erring son pays and pays. He becomes rich as a OConstance Talmadge was' a pallid figure in her weak romantic opus, The Dangerous Maid. QNone builder through skimping in materials, but finally a church under construction topples in, killing his own mother, and the law seeks to punish the criminal constructor. He tries to recover some of the jewels he has lavished upon a beautiful Eurasian only to discover that she is an escaped leper and that he himself is a victim. He kills her in his horror — but dies later when he attempts to elude the police. His widow has escaped leprosy through a new faith and comes to ultimate happiness with the honest carpenter. Thus Mr. de Mille proves — to his own satisfaction, at least — that if you break the ten commandments they will break you. Also, Mr. de Mille points out, through the medium of the grim old mother, that the old laws aren't intended to be enforced to the letter in these modern days. Exodus Better Than Miss Macpherson A s you may guess, the first half of the story is straight from the Old Testament, the second straight from Jeanie Macpherson. And while he has a hard, cruel style, Exodus can write circles around Miss Macpherson when it comes to straightaway drama, if you must know. Her contribution is just movie. Actually, this first half of The Ten Commandments is better than I had anticipated. Perhaps I had forgotten the de Mille of the old days— of, let me say, Joan the Woman— the de Mille who hasn't yet turned to modern plumbing. The characters of this Biblical part are not real— in the sense, for instance, that the historical folk of Ernst Lubitsch live and breathebut there is a steady drive to his screen pictures, along with a genuine pictorial force and momentary seconds of sheer beauty. The flight of the Israelites across the Egyptian sands, caught in the natural color photography, is the high spot of The Ten Commandments. The much discussed crossing of the Red Sea is easily explained. De Mille built two long water-tight walls and then admitted water outside the walls. This was permitted to rise over the ramparts and to fill the avenue between. By simply reversing the film, the water appears to rush away, leaving a safe an.i dry path between toweling walls of water. But to show this for more than a moment on the screen would reveal the genuineness of the walls, so de Mille resorted to doubleexposure. He had two miniature masses of quivering and glistening gelatine arranged in exact duplicate of the walls surrounded by water. This was pictured and then the film was again passed through the camera while, the Israelites and the pursuing Egyptians were photographed, literally between the walls of gelatine. The result does look pretty much like two long armies crossing between high walls of water. Plenty of Camera Trickwork 1 he scenes of Moses receiving the ten commandments on 50