The Ten Commandments....

Glorious special effects!

However, there are a few nits.....

During the exodus, Dathan asks, "Where are we going?" and a guard replies, "To Hell, I hope".

First of all, isn't that type of language too harsh for 1956 standards?
Second, the Egyptians don't believe in "Hell", they call it something else. (I don't know what)

Before the masacre of the firstborn Jews, Ramases
gives the order and a herald cries, "So says Ramases the First"...why are they calling him that? Ramases II won't be born for several years from this point...I mean...we didn't start calling World War I the title of "World War I" until after WWII started.

The blind man is wearing a watch during the exodus scene.

Lastly, Moses did NOT throw the tablets at the golden calf, he threw them on the ground, then destroyed the golden calf, ground it into powder and threw it in the water forced the Israelites to drink the water. Also, the earth opening up and swallowing some of the people doesn't happen until later in the book of Exodus.

>>The blind man is wearing a watch during the exodus scene.

My GOD man! You make me wish I had a copy of this flick! (Are you SURE you're not getting a kick-back from residual sales?)

I'm sure.....

Another nit.......where's Caleb...Joshua's friend who would also go into The Promised Land?

Also...Joshua's last line "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" is out of place....Joshua doesn't say this until he's near death in the book of Joshua.

Also the Pharoah wasn't Ramses.
The Bible doesn't name him, although an Egyptian document, the Ipuwer papyrus, which apparently describes the Exodus from the Egyptian point of view, identifies him as Typhon (aka Typhoon, Tau Thon, other similar sounding names), who was the Pharoah at the end of Egypt's Middle Kingdom. (This, however, doesn't match up with the traditional dating of the Exodus, so is generally ignored.)

The reason that the Exodus is usually identified with Raamses is that he is mentioned by name in Exodus. "And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses" (Exodus 1:11).

I must correct myself...the earthquake that consumed some of the Israelites happened in the book of "Numbers" when Dathan and a few others wanted to become high priests unto the Lord when God already appointed Aaron, his sons and the tribe of Levi.

You know ScottN, Pithom & Typhon would seem to have similar pronunciations. Just a slight consonantal shift. So it is possible that the names of 2 Pharoahs appear in Exodus.

But the original Hebrew spells out peh, taf, mem (OK, it might be peh, tet, mem), which is pronounced "Pitom", anglicized to "Pithom".

"The Ten Commandments"

Hell can be translated as the Underworld, not Hell proper. IN fact the word's orgin is Norse Mythlogy.

A bit of fun by DeMille....

Instead of showing the "Paramount Mountain Logo" at the beginning of the movie, he uses the shot of Mount Sinai as "the mountain surrounded by the stars" to replace the "Paramount Mountain Logo"

Additionally, the tablets used for "The Ten Commandments" were made from the granite of Mt. Sinai itself. (Demille said so)

This was on yesterday evening. ABC airs it every year, on the Saturday before Easter Sunday.