For nine decades, Moses was a movie standout

Hollywood has had its share of big-budget biblical flops, but until now, the Exodus narrative has not been among them. Studios have brought Moses to the big screen sparingly, but in ways that defined the image and character of Moses for each generation of audiences.

The first biblical epic

In 1923, director Cecil B. DeMille left it to the American public to decide the subject of his next movie for Paramount.

DeMille received a letter from a mechanic who suggested he take on “The Ten Commandments.”

Despite opposition from studio executives who didn’t think audiences would connect with a Bible story, DeMille got the green light. For the role of Moses, he cast 61-year-old Theodore Roberts, a popular character actor present in most of DeMille’s previous films.

Roberts played the role with a down-to-earth charm, portraying an 80-year-old Moses on an important mission, but who is approachable at the same time.

On the Israelites’ journey out of Egypt, a child approaches him for a hug. When Moses sees the Israelites cavorting at the Golden Calf, his heartbreak is palpable.

Although the biblical story of Moses and the Israelites comprises only the 40-minute prologue to this feature film — set in then-modern 1923 — the sequence resonated with silent film audiences of the day, and broke box office records. Theatergoers flocked to it across America for more than a year.

It didn’t hurt that in 1922, news of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb and its cache of treasures created a frenzy in the American public for all things Egyptian.

But DeMille himself put forth another explanation for the subject’s significance.

Title cards at the opening of the film tell the audience: “Our modern world defined G-d as a ‘religious complex’ and laughed at the ‘Ten Commandments’ as old fashioned. Then, through the laughter, came the shattering thunder of the World War. And now a blood-drenched, bitter world — no longer laughing — cries for a way out.”

Cold War Moses