'Ten Commandments' went from film to stone Capitol monument got its start in movie promotion

Master showman Cecil B. DeMille couldn't have planned it better.

A peerless self-promoter, the late Ten Commandments director might see the battle being waged in the U.S. Supreme Court as the ultimate publicity stunt — as well as a moral crusade.

DeMille actually helped establish the battleground. He played a role in getting the granite replica of the Commandments placed outside the Texas Capitol. He skillfully avoided footing the bill for the tablets, leaving that to the Fraternal Order of Eagles. The service organization was already distributing written copies of the Commandments across America in 1951, in hopes of combatting juvenile delinquency.

DeMille's Ten Commandments premiered in 1956. Learning of the Eagles' work — and keen to promote his film with their cause — the director encouraged the group to donate carved stone tablets like those that star Charlton Heston, as Moses, brandished in the movie.

The Eagles then donated such tablets for display at city halls, county courthouses, state capitols and public parks around the country. The group got around to Austin in 1961 when the state Legislature accepted the monument as a gift.

Not about money

By then, DeMille was dead, but his film still benefited. By coincidence, The Ten Commandments was reissued to theaters in 1961, when the tablets were installed only 75 feet from the Capitol rotunda. Thus DeMille gained promotional clout even from beyond the grave.

"DeMille knew how to promote his films in a real bombastic way," said Houston film buff and historian Parker Riggs, a devotee of DeMille's biblical epics. "But it wasn't just about that. His enormous ego — he even narrated The Ten Commandments off-screen — was matched by his religious fervor.

"He was very, very religious," Riggs said. "His biblical movies were sincere, something he believed in. They weren't all about making money."

The monument in Austin is 3 feet wide, nearly 7 feet tall and made of red granite. The Supreme Court will decide if it violates constitutional separation of church and state. But the Order of Eagles doesn't think so.

"The Fraternal Order of Eagles has promoted the Ten Commandments not in an attempt to impose religion on the masses, but rather in recognition of their role in the very foundation of our legal system," grand presidents Sonny Crawford and Pat Lazenby said in a joint statement. "Our very laws are built on the bedrock moral precepts of the Ten Commandments."

Regardless of their constitutionality, the Commandments remain a monument to the Eagles' intent to do good, and of DeMille's intent to join them.

Crowning film

DeMille first made a silent film of The Ten Commandments in 1923. He then directed such biblical movies as 1927's The King of Kings, 1935's The Crusades and 1949's Samson and Delilah.

But with its star-driven cast (Yul Brynner and Edward G. Robinson also appeared in the 1956 version) and dramatic scene of the parting of the Red Sea, The Ten Commandments was his crowning achievement. It earned seven Academy Award nominations, including best picture, losing to Around the World in 80 Days, another star-driven epic.

But The Ten Commandments was a bigger hit. It cost $13.5 million to make — a huge sum in those days — and earned $65.5 million. The 49-year-old film is among Amazon.com's top 500 sellers. It enjoys annual sales spikes at Easter.

According to industry tracker boxofficemojo.com, The Ten Commandments is the fifth-top-grossing film of all time when ticket sales are adjusted for inflation. It sold $818 million worth of tickets by today's standards, making it even more popular than Titanic.

DeMille made certain people knew how good it was. In promotional materials, he billed it as "The Greatest Event in Motion Picture History."

The Ten Commandments was again reissued to theaters in the early '70s and has long been a fixture on video, getting a two-disc DVD collector's edition a year ago.

Whether on film posters or DVD boxes, its iconic image is of Heston hoisting the stone tablets.

'Really into it'

"The last great thing DeMille did was The Ten Commandments," Riggs said of the director, who made one additional film, 1958's The Bucaneeer, before dying in 1959 at age 77.

"His involvement with his biblical pictures seemed very sincere. He wasn't just making a movie. He was really into it. He really did want to bear witness."

bruce.westbrook@chron.com