Yul Brynner Centennial: "The Ten Commandments"
Saturday, July 11, 2020 at 7:00PM by Eric Blume
Back in the day, Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The Ten Commandments received an annual Easter airing in network prime-time, much the way The Wizard of Oz and other family classics would be broadcast annually with much fanfare, delivering consistently high ratings each year (remember: only three network options!). I feel like I saw The10Cs multiple times when I was a little kid, each year mesmerized by its massive sweep, colossal size, and amazing special effects.
Revisiting the film for the first time as an adult, in honor of Yul Brynner’s Centennial, wowza is it a howler...
It’s difficult to pick which element has aged the worst: the flimsy cardboard sets; the dime-store gold costumes; the amateurish acting by all the bit players; the bible-by-way-of-soap-opera dialogue…we could go on. Anne Baxter’s super-horned-up acting has truly got to be seen to be believed, but as terrible as she is, she does give the film a juiciness that it desperately needs. But in its defense, The10Cs still really does have a killer narrative drive and its own propulsive energy. It’s cheese, but it’s Roquefort.
Our boy Yul plays Rameses, who fights Charlton Heston’s Moses for the crown and for horny Anne Baxter. In the early part of the film, he wears a decorative side-single ponytail that he miraculously pulls off, and he has a lightness and command as a young Egyptian prince. As his character goes through levels of threat, he becomes less interesting, but Brynner has a quiet power in his more reflective scenes: he captures the sense of a man who knows his power is infinite, and who will chart a course to capture what is his. His Rameses always seems like the smartest person in the room.
Brynner’s “exotic” look, not a face audiences were accustomed to seeing on leads in Hollywood movies, and his clipped, metallic voice, make a perfect foil to Heston, at his leading-man-blue-eyed height. They’re a great match-up visually and stylistically: Heston’s old-school earnestness set against Brynner’s intoxicating eroticism.
The real thrill of Brynner’s performance here is its physicality. Brynner stands like a royal and walks like a royal. He places his body in an array of painterly poses throughout his scenes while remaining completely naturalistic. In the scene where he discovers that Moses is Hebrew, he holds a whip with what can only be called expertise, smartly using his prop as he thinks through his next steps. He uses his whole body with the grace of a ballet dancer and the intimidation of a fighter. He rocks all of his skirts, and he’s divinely sexy in costumes that would make a less confident actor look awfully silly.
1956 was Brynner’s big year. The King and I was released in June, The10Cs in November, and he followed it with Anastasia in December. In the DeMille picture, you get a sense that he knew he was coming into his own: he had the biggest supporting role in the biggest movie of the year, and he brought his natural authority and effortless intensity to this behemoth. Once he disappears from the film’s center, around the film’s midway point, The10Cs becomes a big of a slog: you miss Brynner, his edge, his legs, and his panache.
Related
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• More Yul
Reader Comments (27)
First of all, how DARE you even slightly speak ill of Anne Baxter!
Brynner does have that great commanding presence. His physicality is great and you can believe that the character would stand/dress/behave this way.
While he had very little to wear Brynner never seemed uncomfortable. He seems very confident in his body. He actually posed nude for photographs by George Platt Lynnes.
@Tom G.-I agree. No one should speak ill of Anne Baxter. She's awesome!
This movie has aged beautifully. And Anne Baxter is Oscar worthy. I don’t know what this reviewer is talking about.
It's still shown annually, on ABC.
O always have liked Anne. But this was the worst case of OVERACTING in film history.
I'm on Team Pedro. The movie has indeed aged beautifully. And though Anne Baxter wouldn't have been my winner that year ("Gervaise" and "La Strtada" with titanic performances from respectively Maria Schell and Giulietta Masina) were both submitted for the '56 awards. But Baxter would still have been one of my five finalists. She was such unlikely casting at the time but absolutely rocks the part.
I can't say that I thought MISS Anne Baxter deserved a nomination but I enjoy the hell out of her performance.
The part is ridiculous and playing to the balcony across the street is the only way to go. Heston is all self seriousness and while Brynner is more at home (and I agree effortlessly royal in posture and movement) he still doesn't give the part any humor. So it all falls to Anne and she steps right up with flashing eyes and serpentine moves to deliver such deathless lines as "Oh, Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!"
It's big and at times silly but I love the film and own the special edition which gets trotted out every Easter for a viewing.
I'm with Eric Blume all the way on his essay. Baxter over-acts (adore her in other films), as do most of the cast, but they were also laden with atrocious dialog. What a tacky production.
This film is BAD! Bad, bad, bad! Eric got it exactly right. But ironically Anne Baxter was the best part for me -- someone who knows exactly what she has to do to lend any juice, any vitality to this overproduced, undercooked, and overlong script. If only she had the actual lead, instead of staid Charlton Heston in his umpteenth version of the same role.
BAXTER4EVA
TC is a perfect example of camp, yet to many it is a religious experience.
Yul Brynner was sexy and he knew it I will always appreciate him for workin' it! I've never seen TC before but would like to - I always enjoy Brynner and tbh, snickering at Charlton Heston, who was almost always ridiculously stuffy and self-serious.
Yes, The Ten Commandments is campy in the extreme but it is gloriously so. All three of the leads are about as big as you can go, and what other way is there to play it? How did Anne Baxter ever get cast in this? She's hardly someone you think of as wearing sexy costumes and practically humping the furniture.
What could be better? Except for Yul's chest and thighs. DeMille knew what he was doing. Give them fun, sex, debauchery, etc. before that party killer comes through and stops all the fun with those commandments. ;-)
Someone should do Anne Baxter in this for Snatch Game,she is total camp perfection,it's even mentioned in To Wong Foo.
The Ten Commandments is one of the greatest films of all time. It should be number 1 on the IMDb site. It is an important movie for the greater good. It’s epic timeless will never age, and it grossed a lot of money when it opened in 1956
"The Ten Commandments" is a lot of fun with plenty of camp moments but also some truly spectacular scenes- a must on the big screen.
Joe, is that a joke?
Anne Baxter's and Edward G Robinson's performances take this movie to camp nirvana. Charlton Heston is superb because he doesn't seem to be in on the joke(s) and takes the whole thing dead serious.
we went to see it at a movie theatre a couple of years ago, and being the only two in the whole theatre allowed us to heckle as much as we wanted to. I was amazed at what passed for sets back then! Need an emperor's palace? Throw up some red curtains! Need an empress's bedroom? how about a different shade of red curtains? The throne room? Blue Curtains! It really did feel like a high school play, with a huuuuuuuge budget.
Baxter both gives the film what it needs and knows the vibe and tone of the film so completely. Brynner is very hot and decent as well.
Baxter straddles camp and modern day accepted female objectifying of a man as fine as Brynner perfectly. She gives the maximum oomph in a showy performance that keeps the picture afloat. Her performance has actually aged like fine wine.
Just the sight of Yul posing in those skirts, bare-chested and oiled up, makes my mouth water. Anne is a hoot but Edward G is just so out of his element (I always expect him to put a hit on Moses lol).
how can anybody I mean anybody say anything bad about the ten commandments it is a phenomenal movie and it still holds up today I look forward to it airing every Easter there's so much we can learn from this movie especially today's day and age so to condemn it and say there's cardboard sets and stuff is totally totally ridiculous it's a wonderful movie so let it be written let it be done
Eric -- I loooooove Yul Brynner and I'm sad we didn't do more for his centennial so THANK YOU for writing this. As a baby gay he absolutely thrilled me whenever this was on television though of course i didn't know why. And i agree you REALLY miss him when he's gone.
I've just seen his cock on Twitter
Brynner looks so hot you wonder by Anne Baxter keeps whining about Heston- and let's not forget that other camp highlight in which Vincent Price ties up and tortures John Derek
Jaragon: What's so camp about wanting to torture John Derek, though? These days, that's just cathartic. (Such TERRIBLE movies. From Tarzan, The Ape Man, "She was so weak. I mean, your conception almost killed her." GET IT!? Yeah. John Derek, ladies and gentlemen!)