The Ten Commandments (1923 & 1956) Steelbook

Saw this decades ago at parents as a kid, it was epic back then, and still is today 😃more so in HD. Great actors and, for the time, special effects 😀I got it on Amazon Video 📹 for £2.99, well worth it and no streaming issues either on a 4k TV 📺 with my copper phone line connection at 60+mbs down and 18mbs upload speeds 😁Plus, unlike others, no stupid annoying adverts every few minutes 😉

Bought for my mother for christmas, excellent films, she loved it

Got this for my brother in law. He was over the moon for the dvd.

First of all, don't be put off by the date the film was made. Not only is this one of the greatest story's of all time, but it was cut exquisitely. The script was good, the acting keeps you glued to the screen and the special effects make you forget that you are watching a film and make you feel as if you were there.A classic that will be remembered through the ages.

Very enjoyable film at a good price.

Exactly what it says it is and a wonderful film

This DVD is a true collectors delight - not only is Cecil B. De Mille's last great epic presented in its original widescreen format alongside De Mille's original and very different silent version, but alongside a decent if overly reverential (to De Mille, not God) new documentary with a few decent anecdotes, the legendary ten-minute trailer has been included for good measure.Sitting in his office, with the aid of a wicker basket, a Van Dyke portrait, two stone tablets and a Bible he occasionally bashes, De Mille pitches "the greatest adventure story ever put between the covers of a book!" He solemnly assures us that Heston was cast for his resemblance to Michelangelo's statue of Moses and to prove it, he even shows us a photograph of the actor standing next to it (they look nothing alike!). One of McCarthy's staunchest Hollywood allies in the fifties anti-communist witch-hunts, he goes on to draw none-too-subtle comparisons between the tyranny of Pharaoh and the un-named forces of dictatorship that threaten us 'even to this very day'(the film even has Pharaoh paraphrase Karl Marx at one point), then promptly switches to plugging the sex and spectacle with the kind of wanton abandon that only the highest-minded puritans can muster; "Moses is one of the world's greatest human beings - and human he was to the point of SIN! And holy to the point of seeing God." Ever the showman, he even pops out from behind the curtains just before the film itself starts to give us the same spiel in case we missed the point and inform us that "The picture runs three hours and thirty-nine minutes; there will be an intermission."After such a relentless barrage of hyperbole, disappointment would seem inevitable, but unlike most of De Mille's films, The Ten Commandments stands up remarkably well. Filling in the gaps in the Bible's version of events with lust, treachery and other soap opera staples, it is the complete antithesis of the `think man's epics' that followed in the Sixties. The dialogue is declamatory, the style overtly theatrical, often recoursing to striking tableaux reminiscent of the Biblical pageants of Victorian era. Aside from Edward G. Robinson's corrupt overseer, the performances are painted in broad strokes, with Anne Baxter emoting something rotten, Brynner effortlessly stealing every scene with his inate arrogance and Heston, his hair getting whiter every time he has a chin-wag with God, a square-jawed and solemn All-American Deliverer. Even John P. Fulton's Oscar-winning special effects show their age as well as their matte lines. It would be almost absurdly easy to tear it to pieces were it not for the fact that De Mille's implicit belief in what he put on the screen enables him to carry it off with considerable panache. This is an audience picture on a grand scale, and great fun too.The colour is almost as superb as the original VistaVision Technicolor, the print perfect apart from some slight occasional negative damage in the top right-hand corner of the frame. More hokum than holy it may be, but with a terrific cast and, even now, a genuine sense of wonder to its set-pieces, The Ten Commandments delivers nearly four hours of great entertainment. And the parting of the Red Sea is still one of the great movie moments, matte lines or not. Enjoy!Sadly, the initial release of the film (distinguishable by its cover of the film's poster art of Moses smashing the tablets with a red border at the bottom of the cover) only includes three trailers for the film as extras. Of the three DVD releases of this title so far, the 2006 50th anniversary edition is by far the best, including a documentary and audio commentary about the making of the film and, better still, De Mille's original and very different silent version, which treats the story of Moses as a spectacular prologue to a modern day story. Since Amazon have a tendency to move reviews of different editions around on their site and this review may well end up gracing the wrong edition, it's the 3-disc edition which doesn't have the poster art of Moses smashing the tablets but instead has a photo-montage cover dominated by an image of Heston's Moses with his arms outstretched.Unfortunately, the European Blu-ray suffers from Paramount's policy of dropping extras from their international Blu-ray releases - while the US region-free three disc Blu-ray offers audio commentary and three trailers, and the boxed set also includes the silent version and an extended 73-minute version of the making of documentary (all in rather silly novelty packaging in the shape of two stone tablets inside the box!, the UK release only offers the commentary and trailers - and some European territories only got the film itself with no extras.

Yes, very dated but when you consider they had no digital equipment to create effects it's quite amazing. Anyway, a wonderful story. Brilliantly filmed. A bit corny in places compared with our more mature take these days. If you've 3hrs 40mins to spare it's worth seeing a least once in your life. I've seen it 3 times now (the first two were back in the 50s!).