Trivia / The Ten Commandments (1923)

• California Doubling:
  • The Egyptian scenes were filmed in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes in northern Santa Barbara County. The totally epic Egyptian set was buried in the sand after filming, allegedly on the orders of Cecil B. DeMille himself, who did not want to see a rival filmmaker piggyback on his hard work. Starting in 2012, archaeologists have been uncovering the site. The Red Sea sequence was filmed at Seal Beach.
  • The modern-day story was filmed in San Francisco, which might not be doubling since it's never specified what city it's meant to take place in. The scenes of the church under construction were filmed at the Saints Peter and Paul Church, which really was under construction at the time, but was, of course, not really structurally unsound like the church in the film. You can see the completed church in Dirty Harry and What's Up, Doc?.
• Follow the Leader: It's often thought that the film took some inspiration from D. W. Griffith's Intolerance. At the very least, the film critics of 1923 were quick to see similarities.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: After the failure of his previous movie, DeMille held a contest to ask the public what his next film should be about. The winning entry came from F.C. Nelson of Lansing, Michigan. His pitch opened with the words, "Make the Ten Commandments. You cannot break the Ten Commandments — they will break you." In addition to changing cinematic history, Nelson received a thousand-dollar prize. The prize money was also given to seven others who suggested similar ideas in order to avoid lawsuits.
• Public Domain: Now this in the US as of January 1, 2019. By then, it was already in the public domain in most other countries. However, despite that, it was released on YouTube on December 3, 2021 with rental/purchase prices, as if it were still copyrighted.
• Throw It In!: During the chase to the Red Sea, the Egyptians suffer some chariot crashes. These were accidents that occurred during filming as the chariots really were quite unwieldy.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The movie was originally conceived as an Anthology Film. It would have been a series of ten vignettes, each one dedicated to one of the commandments and showing the consequences of breaking it. Finding that this disjointed structure didn't work dramatically, DeMille and screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson changed it to being about a single character who breaks all the commandments. The prologue was added because it was thought that it would add more weight to the modern story.
  • In Jeanie MacPherson's original script, the mother was more explicitly condemned for her intolerant fundamentalism. In the final film, this was downplayed to the point where the mother comes off as a little old-fashioned, but essentially harmless and well-meaning.

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