10 Comm.

[moon_custafer]

Watched Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. No, not that one - the other one, that DeMille did in the 1920s - in which the Exodus story only takes up the first reel or so, and the rest is a then-contemporary drama about God-fearing (emphasis on Fearing) widow McTavish and her two sons John and Danny who are in the construction industry. While the movie is ostensibly about why it's a Bad Idea to break the commandments, it's also pretty explicit that Danny is initially driven to sin by his overly-strict bible-thumping upbringing, as opposed to older brother John's more compassionate and moderate attitude. Did I mention John's a carpenter?

Thing is, it just keeps getting weirder - Danny and John fall in love with the same woman! Danny becomes a rich building contractor by cutting corners, but eventually a church collapses on his mom while she's visiting the construction site! Danny has an affair with a French-Chinese woman who the audience knows escaped from a leper colony! I kept expecting her to infect Danny as an appropriately Biblical punishment, but for some reason it doesn't go that way - instead Danny flips out, shoots her, then puts the gun in her hand to make it look like suicide, thus combining adultery, murder *and* bearing false witness.

I think it's fair to say they don't make'em like that anymore.

Comments

[crankydon.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Does Reg Hart know about this version?

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Probably, but since it was never banned (AFAIK - though apparently DeMille later tried to detroy all copies) I'm not sure he's interested.