If you want to understand why, 55 years on, Cecil B. DeMille’s epic retelling of the story of Moses, from his birth to ascendancy into Heaven, is still as beloved today as it was when released during the first term of the Eisenhower administration, all you need do is watch the director explain the theme of his masterpiece in the short segment that opens the film. It’s an odd moment. After all, how many movies open with the director stepping out from behind a curtain to lay the groundwork for what’s to follow? This unconventional decision more than works, though, as it sets a thoughtful and reverential tone that will carry you through the upcoming 220 minutes.

Mr. DeMille tells us outright…

“The theme of this picture is whether man ought to be ruled by God’s law or whether they are to be ruled by the whims of a dictator like Ramses. Are men property of the State, or are they free souls under God? This same battle continues throughout the world today.”

Yes, today, and not just where “The Ten Commandments” is set — throughout the Middle East in countries such as Egypt — but also here in America as we watch an ever-growing federal government burden us with debt and chip away at our liberties. I’m not comparing Egypt’s current struggle with our own in any way other than how DeMille’s use of this universal theme speaks in some way to everyone and will for as long as there’s a civilization. As his epic unfolds, this is the theme DeMille holds on to, straight through to the story’s final line of dialogue — Moses’ (Charlton Heston) parting words to Joshua (John Derek) before he joins the God who has put him through so much:

“Go. Proclaim liberty throughout all the lands, unto all the inhabitants there of.”

Last week I watched the entire film straight through twice, once on the big-screen at a special event commemorating the film’s Blu-ray release, and again just a few days later on the actual Blu-ray. The finest compliment I can pay one of Hollywood’s all-time great epics is that I could watch it again tonight and enjoy it just as much. DeMille’s world is so vivid, so detailed and all consuming, that after spending nearly four hours visiting, you just want to return to lose yourself into it again and again. The story stays with you for days and you truly do miss spending time with those wonderfully drawn characters.

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A Los Angeles Times article I read recently made me chuckle. It began by wearily tossing an exhausted barb at the 3-D phenomenon sweeping Hollywood: “With sighs of relief, critics last week took off their Polaroid glasses and looked at a couple of old-fashioned, two-dimensional films.” The big-screen photography of one of those pictures drew particular attention, with one critic noting that “It gives reality a true third dimension. . . the kind of 3-D you cannot get with mechanical tricks or by any other means except a rich comprehension and ingenious mastery of the visual storyteller’s art.”

Well, let me fess up. I read the article recently, yes — but in a fifty-year-old copy of the Los Angeles Times. The paper was dated May 6, 1953, and the two-dimensional film being praised for bucking Hollywood’s push towards 3-D was Shane.

It was a time when TV was cutting deeply into movie profits, and studios were scrambling to win back the wandering eyeballs of America. Cinerama, an ambitious, three-projector widescreen extravaganza, debuted in New York in the fall of 1952, with its test film This Is Cinerama garnering front-page fanfare and great acclaim. Bosley Crowther, the Roger Ebert of his time, gasped that it gave the audience “the same sensations. . . felt on that night, years ago, when motion pictures were first publicly flashed on a large screen. . . People sat back in spellbound wonder. . . as though most of them were seeing motion pictures for the first time.” In a single evening, the development of all-new expansive formats had become a fait accompli, and studios immediately began looking for ways to capitalize on the buzz. (more…)

Film blogger and sometimes Turner Classic Movies’ programmer,The Self-Styled Siren, came up with a terrific idea for a movie list: That which we love in filmdom that puts our cool credentials into question (And yes, I do have Cool Credentials. My mother keeps them with my badminton trophies). Siren describes the criteria for the list this way: 

“As always, it’s best to define terms. By uncool, the Siren doesn’t mean “slightly offbeat” or “quirky” or “underrated.” She means “courting hoots of derision from critical colleagues.” Picking a lesser work of a widely admired auteur doesn’t cut it, because after all, even late Hawks is still Hawks. And picking a film that was once lambasted, but is no longer, is also not exactly what the Siren had in mind.”

I would also add that there are certain uncool films that are now cool to like. The work of Ed Wood, for instance. Those choices shouldn’t count, either. We have to go for what’s embarrassing to admit to, and lucky for you there’s plenty to clean out of my uncool closet.

1. Fox Musicals: Everyone loves those big lavish MGM musicals of the forties and fifties, and those triumphs do represent for me the highest level of  artistic achievement we will ever see on film. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the hell out of the musicals Darryl Zanuck’s 20th Century-Fox produced to help Americans through a Great Depression. The name of the game was “simple”; simple stories, simple tunes… And not one true classic film emerged from the bunch. These films weren’t about that. They were about innocent, joyful escapism and to help you along were such stars as Sonja Henie, Carmen Miranda, Betty Grable, John Payne, Edward Everett Horton, Billy Gilbert, Charlotte Greenwood, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, and Cesar Romero. (more…)

Here’s my annual list of the Ten Best Movies I Screened in 2009.

I did not see more than a handful of contemporary releases that came close to the smart pacing, narrative sophistication and honest passion of these older films.

Though I will give a strong nod to 500 Days of Summer and Funny People, two fine films. Both are beautifully written, carefully structured and oh what a relief, they vigorously espouse what can only be described as (mostly) conservative values, a welcome relief in this post-modern age where nihilism passes for, ahem, cutting edge entertainment.

But I roll with classic Hollywood, silent movies and films from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Keep in mind that most of the movies on my list were produced on modest budgets, never intended as studio blockbusters.

I’m not claiming that any of these movies are classics like The Crowd or Seven Samurai. I am saying that these ten films are grand entertainment from Hollywood’s great dream factory and well worth seeking out. (more…)

You know, people, I really wish I knew what the story was regarding President Obama’s puzzling diplomatic approach to Islamist Iran. Inquiring Minds Want To Know. This ain’t no movie, and I really don’t like the storyline to date. Haven’t since 1979. So what’s the script? White House Productions seems to be holding the storyline in blackout mode, and at this point I’m ready to put former FOX reporter Roger Friedman on the job of rooting it out. He sure did a bang-up job on “Wolverine.”

To be fair, I actually gave the President credit in this March 26th opinion piece entitled “Is President Obama Turning The Tables on Iran?” See, it occurred to me that the President might be undertaking a very brilliant strategy toward the Islamic Republic. If the President offers the Iranian regime nothing but carrots and gets nothing but sticks in return, then the regime is exposed as the hard case it really is. Nobody could say the President hadn’t tried every means at his disposal to make peace. (more…)