# The Ten Commandments (1923 film)
**The Ten Commandments** is a 1923 American silent epic directed and produced by [Cecil B. DeMille](https://www.edgepedia.org/cecil-b-demille), written by Jeanie Macpherson, and released by Famous Players-Lasky (Paramount). It tells the Exodus story of Moses in a Biblical prologue and then applies the commandments to a modern morality story set in San Francisco.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) • [2](https://www.paramount.com/movies/the-ten-commandments-1923)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / producer | Cecil B. DeMille; written by Jeanie Macpherson; production company Famous Players-Lasky Corp.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) |
| Structure | A Biblical prologue from Exodus, followed by a modern story set in San Francisco about two brothers, John and Dan McTavish, who love Mary Leigh[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) |
| Release | Opened at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood, 4 December 1923; New York opening 21 December 1923[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) |
| Format | Silent, black and white with color sequences; 12,000 feet in 12 or 14 reels[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) |
| Cost and gross | Cost $1,475,836.93 and grossed $4,169,798.38, excluding later reissues and television syndication[3](https://www.cecilbdemille.com/portfolio-item/the-ten-commandments-1923/) |
| Principal cast | Theodore Roberts (Moses), Charles de Rochefort (Rameses), Estelle Taylor (Miriam), Richard Dix (John McTavish), Rod La Rocque (Dan McTavish), Leatrice Joy (Mary Leigh)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1021014-ten_commandments/cast-and-crew) |
| Preservation | Restored by Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation with support from the George Eastman House[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) |
## Spoilers
### Structure and story
The film opens with a written prologue arguing that the modern world had laughed at the [Ten Commandments](https://www.edgepedia.org/ten-commandments) as old fashioned until the World War, and that the commandments are "the fundamental principles without which mankind cannot live together." These titles are followed by a quotation from Exodus 1:13–14 on the [Egyptians](https://www.edgepedia.org/egyptians)' harsh bondage of the children of Israel.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS)
The Biblical prologue depicts episodes from Exodus: the ill-treatment of the Jews by the Egyptians, their escape across the parted waters of the [Red Sea](https://www.edgepedia.org/red-sea), Moses receiving the tablets, his finding the [Israelites](https://www.edgepedia.org/israelites) worshipping the [golden calf](https://www.edgepedia.org/golden-calf), and his breaking of the tablets.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) The remainder of the film takes place in modern-day San Francisco. Two brothers, John and Dan McTavish, both love Mary Leigh, who chooses Dan. Dan becomes a wealthy building contractor by using inferior materials and bribing the building inspector, Redding, and his downfall ends in his death when he is crushed on the rocks in a motorboat accident. Before dying, he kills Sally Lung, his Asian mistress, while trying to obtain bribe money, and fears he has contracted leprosy from her.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) John, a carpenter, embodies the laws of Moses, and after Dan's death John and Mary are reunited.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1021014-ten_commandments/cast-and-crew) • [5](https://www.film-foundation.org/ten-commandments-hfpa)
## Production
In November 1922, contemporary sources reported that DeMille planned to base his next picture on the Ten Commandments. The Los Angeles Times had held a "scenario contest" awarding $1,000 for the best idea expressed in not more than three hundred words, and DeMille, impressed by public interest in what he called a "tremendous theme," decided the film would be the biggest, most ambitious picture of his career.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS)
**Research and design.** DeMille sent costume designer Clare West to Paris for the modern sequences and tasked Florence Meehan, described as an authority on ancient culture, with gathering information on dress, artifacts, architecture, and locations; she reportedly traveled to Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, India, Java, Sri Lanka, Tibet, and Pakistan. In May 1923 she landed in San Francisco with half a million dollars' worth of props and costumes, on which more than seven thousand dollars in duty was paid.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS)
**The desert shoot.** [Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) of the Biblical prologue took place at Guadalupe, California, about two hundred miles north of Los Angeles, chosen for its vast sand dunes. Carpenters began building sets in late April 1923, including a replica of the city of Ramses II with an avenue of sphinxes. Filming began 27 May 1923: over 2,000 people camped in the desert for the two-week shoot on a twenty-four-square-mile site, using sand sleds to traverse the dunes. Each day a sled carried the exposed footage to a car bound for Los Angeles for development, and processed dailies returned to [Guadalupe](https://www.edgepedia.org/guadalupe) by two p.m. the next day. Desert filming ended 10 June 1923.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS)
**Modern sequences.** The modern story was shot primarily at the Lasky studios in Hollywood, with four strenuous days of work in San Francisco in early August 1923 at the partly finished Church of St. Peter and St. Paul on [Washington Square](https://www.edgepedia.org/washington-square), whose half-completed cathedral the story required. Paramount announced in September 1923 that filming was complete.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) DeMille arranged for composer Hugo Riesenfeld to prepare an original musical score.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS)
## Release and reception
Although the trade press promoted a "world premiere" at the [George M. Cohan](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-m-cohan) theater in New York on 21 December 1923, the film had already opened at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on 4 December 1923. It then opened in Chicago on 11 February 1924, Philadelphia on 19 February, Boston on 10 March, and London on 17 March, a staggered schedule that one scholar, Sumiko Higashi, author of a study of DeMille's silent era, linked to Famous Players-Lasky's financial difficulties and the expense of first-run publicity.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) • [6](https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/public/book/cecil-b-demille-and-american-culture-the-silent-era.html)
Critics praised the spectacle of the prologue, particularly the "sensational" parting of the Red Sea, and the 17 November 1923 Exhibitors Herald noted the use of color throughout the Biblical section. The uniform criticism was that the modern-day segment seemed "hokey" and "ordinary" beside the Biblical material.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) Photoplay's James R. Quirk called it "the best photoplay ever made" and "the greatest theatrical spectacle in history," and a Motion Picture News report from the New York opening described three hours of unbroken audience interest and deafening applause.[3](https://www.cecilbdemille.com/portfolio-item/the-ten-commandments-1923/)
## Legacy
DeMille directed a second version of [The Ten Commandments](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-ten-commandments-1956-film) for Paramount in 1956, starring [Charlton Heston](https://www.edgepedia.org/charlton-heston); unlike the 1923 film, it is set entirely in Biblical times.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) The 1923 film's combination of a Biblical prologue with a contemporary morality story, and its use of color sequences and large-scale special effects, made it a reference point for the American biblical epic; a scholarly analysis by Anton K. Kozlovic of Flinders University argues that DeMille engineered Christ-figure subtexts into the protagonists of both versions.[7](https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol10/iss1/2/) [The Film Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-film-foundation)'s restoration has kept the film in circulation on home video and streaming services.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS) • [8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1021014-ten_commandments)
## References
1. [The Ten Commandments (1923), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12569-THE-TEN-COMMANDMENTS)
2. [The Ten Commandments (1923), Paramount Pictures](https://www.paramount.com/movies/the-ten-commandments-1923)
3. [The Ten Commandments (1923), Cecil B. DeMille Foundation](https://www.cecilbdemille.com/portfolio-item/the-ten-commandments-1923/)
4. [The Ten Commandments: Full Cast & Crew, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1021014-ten_commandments/cast-and-crew)
5. [Out of the Vaults: "The Ten Commandments", 1923, The Film Foundation](https://www.film-foundation.org/ten-commandments-hfpa)
6. [Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture: The Silent Era, University of California Press](https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/public/book/cecil-b-demille-and-american-culture-the-silent-era.html)
7. [Kozlovic, Anton K. (2006). The Construction of a Christ-figure within the 1956 and 1923 Versions of Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, Journal of Religion & Film](https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol10/iss1/2/)
8. [The Ten Commandments, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1021014-ten_commandments)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent feature films › Released 1914 to 1926*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license