In light of the religious holidays this week, our Movie of the Day series is back to celebrate Easter and Passover accordingly. We'll start with Passover, as the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film remains the quintessential "life of Moses" story to this day. Charlton Heston is the chosen one of course, and the great Yul Brynner is his brother/enemy Rameses, with Anne Baxter slinking around in about a million sparkly wardrobe changes as Nfretiri. This is one long movie (nearly 4 hours), but it's such a great example of the kind of biblical "event" epic they just don't make anymore. It has the works- a cast of thousands (they had to do the real thing with no CGI available), crazy costumes, heavy-handed acting, the booming score...even an introduction from DeMille himself. It's a classic for a reason and always worth watching again this Passover week. We'll see if Ridley Scott's upcoming Exodus (coming out at Christmas) with Christian Bale as Moses, can top it but somehow I doubt it, don't you?
Trailer:
