"The Ten Commandments" Live Blog-Post-a-Thon Event! Part One

My favorite part about Easter isn't the ham, or the candy, or the Easter egg hunts. I'm happy the weather starts to shape up, and some Easters are warm, while others are down-right frigid, but that's not my favorite part either.

It's the annual airing of Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments."

Today, I will spend 3-hours (maybe, we'll see how long I can last) to live blog this movie -- I can't wait until Sunday night with commercial breaks. I actually own the movie. So, I'll do it now:

"So let it be written, so let it be done."

Overture:
No wonder this movie is over 3-hours long. There are even curtains about to open. Oh, a man just came out. He just told us that the Bible leaves out 30 years of Moses' life. That, and they turned to historians to look for Moses' early life.

No wonder this movie is searingly realistic.

English Majors, alert: The man just told us the theme of the piece.

Did early Hollywood leave us nothing?!

3 hours and 39 minutes to unfold, and there will be an intermission.

Oh, Cecil. Why didn't you just turn this thing into a musical?

The Movie has started:
We have put baby Moses into the basket, and we are now wading through the water. Moses mother looks eerily familiar to Lily Munster, the matriarch on "The Monsters," but we know that's not true because Yvonne de Carlo will show up later and steal Moses' heart. Moses' Adopted Mom hands the Hebrew cloth to Memnet, her servant, but Memnet doesn't toss it into the Nile.

Instead, she will use it when the time is right!

Cut to the future: Yule Brenner, Ramses, is helping dress his father, the Pharaoh, right now. He's the only one that actually looks like he could actually be from Egypt. Everyone else is British and white, strutting around the set like it's Shakespeare.

Moses has just returned from Ethiopia.

Moses' adopted mother is a bit obsessed with him, throwing flower petals and practically swooning. She says his name like she's not his mother, but...wait. Maybe that's the girlfriend. No wonder she was mumbling over-dramatically and staring off into space. Every year, I get those two confused.

Now that Moses is back, Ramses is all-kinds of jealous. Too bad there isn't a cat-fight between these two later on in the movie. Moses could go after Ramses' ponytail. Yank that weave right off his head.

Scenes from outside the Palace:
Now, we turn to the Hebrew slaves building the city. Joshua and Lilia are a bit too spry to be slaves -- shouldn't they be more haggard? Joshua jumps down from the top of the statue he's working on, much like an excited Tarzan, just to get some water from Lilia. They shouldn't be breathlessly in love, but breathlessly exhausted, right? The quick scene is just to remind us that they are still waiting for the Prophecy of the Deliverer to come.

Cut to: Ramses talking about the Deliverer.

I wonder if the Deliverer is their acting coach. Someone to help them not speak. With. Pauses. Like. William Shatner.

Cut to: Oh no! An old lady's belt is stuck under the giant statue that's being pushed. It's going to get her! The suspense! Moses! Where are you? The lady, she's fallen and she can't get up!

Life Alert!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Joshua! He's leapt from the basket up high to save the lady who was too weak to rip the fabric of her robe to escape from impending doom!

No, I lie. He just stopped the guards. It is Moses, Moses that frees her from the stone, and then confronts none other than Vincent Price, the Master Builder!

"Are you a master builder or a master butcher?" Moses has just asked.

ZING!

"If we stop moving stones for every grease woman that falls, the city would never rise."

Delivered by Vincent Price with his coined, casual coldness.

This scene between Charlton Heston and Vincent Price was brought to you by Edgar Allen Poe.

But Moses isn't finished, yet! He has led the slaves to the grain silos to unleash and bury them all with food.

That is gross. Their dirty, sweaty bodies are engulfed. What will that bread taste like?

"Mmm, dirty skin bread!"

Back to the Palace:
Important scene alert! Important scene alert!

Ramses just kissed Moses' Girlfriend. He was all, "You'll be my wife, regardless of what you think."

And she looked at him defiantly and was like, "Psshh. That kiss wasn't telling you what you'll have, but what you'll never have." She then stuck her palm up to his face.

But Ramses one-upped her and was all, "I don't care if you like me. I like you and if you don't like me, that's your business." Then, he threw a shawl over his shoulder and, literally, struts away.

Moses' Girlfriend wipes her mouth off and stares off, over the right shoulder of the cameraman, and starts to tremble in doom to make sure the audience knows this is foreshadowing.

Cut to: The Pharaoh is so proud of the city Moses is building he slaps him on his back and says, "Our names will be carved next to each other. Ramses' name will be nowhere."

BURN!

After the Pharaoh and Moses hold hands and skip away, Ramses doesn't falter. Instead, he sticks his chest out and proclaims with blind ego: "The city Moses builds will bear my name. The woman Moses loves will bear my child. So it is written, so it shall be done."

Cut to: Moses' Girlfriend is gazing at her navel in the mirror when the Evil Memnet shows up, holding Moses Herbrew baby blanket, showing his true identity.

Moses' Girlfriend is having none of that. Instead, she pushes Memnet off the side of the building, and then throws herself at Moses. She's so in love with Moses that she will kill!

Run, Moses! She's got crazy eyes!

But, no! Moses finds the Hebrew cloth. Moses' Girlfriend tells him the truth, clutches Moses and sobs, "You are the son of Hebrew slaves."

Then, before he goes and asks his adopted mother his true identity, he sings his first solo in the Palace hallways.

"Who am I? 24601!"

Oh, wait. That's "Les Miserables."

Plot Twist!
Remember that old lady that was caught up and about to get squished under the stone that Moses saved? That's Moses' mother!

Now that he's met her, his world has been cast into confusion. Is he a slave? Is he royalty?

Stay tuned!