Another Easter is upon us, though it might be tough to notice. Unlike Christmas or even Halloween, Easter has never been fully commercialized, and without a glut of TV commercials and specials (and days off work) it can come and go without much fanfare. While we can enjoy the exchange of Christmas presents or dressing up for Halloween well into adulthood, most Easter traditions are largely kid’s stuff—I see few adult Easter egg hunts. Thankfully, one Easter tradition from my childhood is still blissfully intact: The airing of cheesy biblical movies on TV.Though it might fall by the wayside eventually, for now ABC still airs The Ten Commandments every year on the Saturday before Easter. When I was a kid, I thought a movie like this was the pinnacle of filmmaking: Huge sets, huge crowds, and huge acting. Though it all might seem a bit over the top and cheesy now, it has a charm all its own, particularly in the way it pads up the rather thin biblical story into a four hour movie.
It’s funny how much of the pop-culture impression of the biblical story of the Exodus actually comes from this movie. The Ten Commandments is so influential that the far superior animated film, The Prince of Egypt, though it claims to be based on the book of Exodus, is actually just a remake of the 1956 film, right down to the bald Yul Brynner hairstyle of Ramses II. Moses’ time in Egypt in the Bible boils down to about a paragraph. We only know that he was raised in the house of some pharaoh and is exiled after killing a slave master. The movie, however, makes Moses the adopted younger brother of Ramses II and spends a lot of time on the shirtless Charlton Heston’s role as prince of Egypt.
A highlight of the film is Anne Baxter as the sultry queen Nefretiri, a beautiful testament just how much 1950s America hated women. In the Biblical story, the Pharaoh is actually pretty eager to let the Hebrews go once Moses starts pestering him, but every time he tries God hardens his heart so God can show off with more plagues. The God in the story’s purpose is to show how powerful he is, not to free the Hebrew slaves. They’re simply an accessory to his display of machismo. Naturally, a realistic depiction of the story would never fly with middle American Christians of the 1950s, so instead of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart against the Hebrews, the work is done by his scheming wife Nefretiri.
Indeed, without Anne Baxter’s feminine meddling, the whole Hebrew slavery crisis might have blown over without a lot of trouble. Pharaoh would have let Moses and the slaves go before it ever came to murdering the firstborn sons, and he might have gone on to rule a successful kingdom as an equal partner with the Hebrews and many other races. Instead the evil Nefretiri manipulates poor Ramses at every turn. In one memorable effort to stir Ramses against Moses and the Hebrews, she rubs Ramses' face in the fact that she threw herself at Moses. "All that you wanted from me, he would not even take!" she sneers. That's just cold. The lesson, for all the would be pharaohs or Hebrew messiahs out there, is simple: Never listen to women—they’re evil monsters who make a mockery of the very will of God. Audiences of the era weren't willing to accept a scheming, self-involved, and cruel God and the theological implications of such a deity, but a scheming, self-involved, and cruel woman? That's no problem.
I can’t leave this movie without mentioning the line so silly that it made it to the title of this post. If you thought ridiculous action hero lines originated with the Stallone and Van Damme films of the 1980s, you’ve obviously never seen Charlton Heston literally murder a crowd of apostate Hebrews with the Ten Commandments. There are few things more entertaining than watching Charlton Heston, in a ridiculous beard, raise the tablets above his head and shout out “Those who will not live by the law…” (Pause for dramatic emphasis) “…WILL DIE BY THE LAW!!” before throwing the Ten Commandments into the crowd. Never mind that it makes no sense. Never mind that it’s a complete twisting of both Jewish and Christian religious philosophy. I can’t think of a better phrase to utter when preparing to murder a group of people with a copy of a law code. 
My other favorite Hollywood Easter Epic is 1961’s King of Kings, starring Captain Christopher Pike as Jesus. Though it’s less famous, I think this movie is actually a good bit better than The Ten Commandments. It’s tough to stay true to the Biblical story of Jesus (which unlike The Ten Commandments, King of Kings actually makes an effort to do) and keep things interesting. The guy basically walks around talking for three years and then has a pretty hectic final week. King of Kings makes up for this by providing a (wildly historically inaccurate) depiction of the socio-political climate during the time in which Jesus lived. So while Jeffery Hunter’s Jesus does little more than walk around speechifying in a deep and powerful voice, we get scheming politicians, lots of background on the Roman Empire and the occupation of Judea, and actual battle scenes between the Romans and Jewish rebels. That’s right: Battle scenes in a movie about Jesus, decades before Mel Gibson ever thought of picking up a camera.
Special mention needs to be made of young Brigid Bazlen's performance as Salome. She brings an evil malevolence to the spoiled palace brat. When asked why she wants the head of John the Baptist, she replies simply “I want to look at it” in a voice so haughty and matter of fact that it becomes chilling. It’s easy to believe that this girl would derive pleasure from looking at a severed head. More importantly, her seductive dance to convince King Herod to give her the head showed just how much sex you could get away with if you were willing to creatively push the bounds of the old Motion Picture Production Code. There’s nothing as titillating as actual nudity, and nothing overt, but just by dancing around in a gold bikini Salome proved now and forever that sexiness is all about attitude.
There’s a lot more I could write about both of these movies, so perhaps I’ll write a full discussion of them at some time in the future. In the meantime, as this particular Easter winds down, I’ll leave you with the excellent main title music from King of Kings. Nothing sums up the spirit of Easter more than this bombastic composition from the golden age of Hollywood epics. It's too bad they don't make movies like these anymore--the world could always use a little more over the top earnestness. 