Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Presenting biblical epic at Coatbridge cinema an ‘honour’
My latest Advertiser column is dedicated to the memory of my gran Mary Hackett (nee Stirton) who encouraged my love of cinema and always managed to scrape up the money for me to go to the pictures.
“For those who believe no explanation is necessary, for those who don’t no explanation is possible” – the opening introduction of The Song of Bernadette (1943).
It is with great pride and enthusiasm I present a look at a timeless cinematic masterpiece that defies comparison – and stands head and shoulders over most religiously-themed fare.
In film history the Bible and religion have inspired some of the greatest Hollywood classics. The Ten Commandments (1956), produced and directed by Cecil B. Demille, was a remake of his silent version produced in the early twenties.
The producer-director created his costliest, longest, most successful and, ultimately, final biblical epic.
In casting the epic production, Demille used the top drawer of Hollywood’s greatest stars; Charlton Heston as Moses, Yul Brynner (Rameses), Anne Baxter (Nefriteri), Sir Cedric Hardwicke (Sethi) and a superb supporting cast of talented performers.
The story of Moses and the exodus from Egypt by the Hebrew slaves is vividly visualised in a spectacular Technicolor production filmed in Vistavision, which was Paramount Studios’ answer to Twentieth Century-fox’s Cinemascope process.
Vistavision exposed two frames of film at a time, running horizontally in the camera, giving a greater depth of field that didn’t require an anamorphic lens when projected on the screen. The negative was made on 70mm stock and reduced to 35mm during printing to reduce graininess.
The masterpiece involved several years of painstaking research and preparation before
the cameras could roll; with a brilliant cinema aesthetician and showman like Demille at the helm there would be no compromise with his most outstanding achievement.
The Ten Commandments was filmed in Egypt, Mount Sinai and the Sinai Peninsula. Interior scenes were shot on massive sound stages at Paramount Studios. The exodus scenes were staged at Beni Yuseff, near Cairo. Ten thousand Arabs were recruited as extras playing the children of Israel, together with 15,000 camels, water buffaloes, sheep, horses, oxen, goats, ducks, geese, pigeons, dogs, donkeys and, of course, many cattle.
The combination of this magnificent visual ensemble with the brilliant musical score created for the film by Elmer Bernstein is a spellbinding movie experience.
Surprisingly, The Ten Commandments received only one Academy Award in 1957 for John P
Fulton’s best special effects. The most difficult effect, and the tour-de-force in the picture, was the magnificent parting of the Red Sea and one can imagine audiences who went to see the film wondering how the effect was achieved.
Computer-generated images weren’t available in 1956. The effects of the movie were created by the human brain – the best computer available, yet seldom used in today’s world.
People often make the mistake of comparing older classic films to the modern epics of today with regards to their special effects, and they quite ignorantly categorise them as inferior.
Even a three-year-old can create CGI on a PC and make it look convincing with a mouse and a keyboard.
As a six-year-old, I saw The Ten Commandments with my gran during Easter 1956 at the New Cinema in Airdrie, and sat for nearly four hours mesmerised and totally engrossed by this fabulous movie. I had no way of knowing then that, 10 years later, in Easter 1967 as a junior projectionist at the ABC Cinema in Coatbridge, I would have the honour of presenting The Ten Commandments for a special six-day return engagement.
It was an excited lad who arrived at the ABC on a Monday morning to begin the daily routine maintenance required in the projection booth working alongside chief operator John Offord as he made up the program for the coming week.
The Ten Commandments comprised 12 reels of film that had to be mounted onto spools and thoroughly checked for any defects.
As an apprentice, it was my job to maintain the two massive Peerless Magnarc 35mm projectors which had to be thoroughly cleaned and lubricated daily.
In those days the light source for the projectors was a carbon arc lamp which created an accumulation of ashes in the lamphouse that had to be carefully brushed off and removed and the mirror cleaned with Windolene.
The projector sprockets, including the picture gate, were then scrubbed with carbon tetrachloride, followed by cleaning the photoelectric cell and exciter lamp sweeping and mopping the floor, polishing the portholes inside and out.
After a thumbs up inspection by the chief operator, we were ready to present the big show.
During weekdays the ABC was the only Monklands cinema that opened in the afternoon, The Ten Commandments had two performances at popular prices daily, at 2pm and 6.30pm. It did record business, especially with the Saturday matinee kids who filled the stalls.
The experience was highly rewarding; the week of a lifetime with nostalgic, magical movie memories.