Goofs for
The Ten Commandments (1956) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When Moses is talking to the Hebrew crowd as the deliverer for the first time, the stick in his hand changes hands as it is filmed from different positions.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Moses on top of the large rock with a watch on.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The floating basket bounces in the water when the lid is closed as would be expected; but scenes in which the lid is open and the baby Moses is visible the basket is stationary, very obviously supported under the water. Maybe the basket could not float with the weight of the baby, or maybe it was for safety reasons.
  
  

• Continuity: When Nefretiri appears carrying their newly-dead son to Ramses, the boy's skirt is hanging very low. In the next shot, the excess skirt is suddenly wrapped under her arm.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Ramses stands in front of the Saqarra pyramids, with the Nile in the background and deports Moses into the desert. Unfortunately this will send Moses due west into the Sahara, instead of east across the Sinai.
  
  
• Continuity: When the chariots are riding out of the city, the shots alternate between a clear blue sky and a sky with clouds.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The words on the stone tablets are clearly visible before they are "carved" into the stone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Yochabel is trapped before the stone her robe's rope belt varies in length.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The safety pin on the infant Moses' diaper can be seen when the baby is afloat on the Nile.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Israelites are making the golden calf, one of the male dancers carelessly, but harmlessly, backs into the pot of molten metal.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Nefretiri is playing "Hounds and Jackals" and talking with Rameses, the lace trim at the top of her brassiere is visible.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Moses is standing on the rock with the Ten Commandments in his hand, he points to the Hebrews and his voice is heard saying, "Blasphemers! Idolaters!" but his lips do not move.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Hebrews are going out of Egypt, a camel eats some fruit that a man is carrying on his back. In the next shot, the amount of fruit has decreased markedly (too much for the camel to have eaten it all).
  
  
• Anachronisms: When "Bithia" fishes Moses out of the Nile, you can't miss the blatant zipper up the back of her dress. I accept that Edith Head couldn't make every costume historically accurate, but there were ways of fastening clothes that don't call for a mechanism invented in A.D. 1891.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the movie, the 10th Plague (killing of the firstborn of the Egyptians) occurs with a crescent moon showing. However, the Jewish holiday of Passover, which coincides with the 10th Plague, occurs on the 14th day of the month of Nissan, according to the biblical book of Exodus. Because the Jewish calendar is based on a lunar cycle, there would be a full moon on the 14th of the month.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Pharaoh's chariots leave the city gates to go after the slaves, some shots of the chariots have long shadows, as if shot in late afternoon. But in other shots of the chariots, their shadows are short, as if shot in mid-day.
  
  
• Errors in geography: As Nefretiri watches Rames lead the chariots out of the palace to catch up and destroy the Hebrews, the shadows from the chariots and Nefretiri are cast from two different angles.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Jethro's daughters are dancing in the tent in front of Moses and the Sheiks, the music starts before the musicians actually begin "playing".
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the chase in the Red Sea, the lead chariots are riding on ground was already neatly grooved with wheel tracks. There is no evidence of the footsteps made by thousands of slaves and animals. A shot of the slaves exiting the Red Sea reveals how trampled the ground should have looked.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Moses is building the city, and calls for a blue signal, the guard waves a blue flag in front of the backdrop, and the flag is filtered out and becomes transparent, alluding to the fact that there is in fact a blue-screened backdrop and not an actual city behind them.
  
  
• Continuity: The position of Pharoah's arm changes when he calls "Forward!"
  
  
• Continuity: Nefretiri's position changes while playing Hounds and Jackals, when told that Moses and Ramses are coming.
  
  
• Continuity: "The Red Sea" changes color many times while being parted. Perhaps this is due to the blue screen process, color-timing errors, or print degradation, but at times it appears blue, green, and even gray in color. When later remastered (for TV and DVD)the Red Sea became deep blue in color without a hint of green in it!
  
  
• Continuity: After the Red Sea has parted, it is shown refilled, then parted, then refilled again.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Bithia tells Yochabel to leave Goshen, Yochabel replies, "We are Levites, appointed shepherds of Israel. We cannot leave our people." At this time the Levites held no special place among the tribes of Israel. According to the Bible the Levites were sanctified to the Lord's use after rallying to Moses' side and killing 3,000 of the people who continued in rebellion at the foot of Mt. Sinai.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Sephora wonders if Nefertiri's eyes are as Green as the Cedar's of Lebanon. In the 1200s BC Lebanon was known as Phoenecia.
  
  
• Continuity: When Nefretiri has Moses brought from the brickworks to her barge, he is filthy and he holds himself back from embracing her. At one point in the conversation though, he grabs her shoulders, but leaves no marks on her nor on her dress. Later in the conversation he refrains from holding her again for fear of leaving her dress soiled.
  
  
• Continuity: When Nefretiri asks Moses whether his wife has hair with an 'odor like sheep', her position in relation to Moses changes between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When Moses is on the shore of the Red Sea and Dathan approaches, the sea behind is calm. However, when Dathan reaches him the sea behind is now turbulent.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Dathan asks the soldier where they're going after Passover, the soldier responds "To Hell, I hope." At the time of the Exodous, there was no concept of Hell. It was, instead, developed after the dawn of the Christian Era.
  
  
• Factual errors: Omitted from the scene where the Egyptian chariots are pursuing the Israelites through the Red Sea is the fact that the Lord caused the chariot wheels to be clogged or out of alignment so that they swerved and drove with difficulty. (Exodus 14:25)
  
  
• Factual errors: At the end when when Moses is saying goodbye he gives Eliazar the 5 books (Torah) he had written under the inspiration of God. What Moses is holding in his hand is a worn but modern day portfolio. Charlton Heston said he tried to get Cecil B. DeMille to make them scrolls but to no avail.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Pharoah is dying, he calls one of the mourners a "windbag." The windbag was the name given to the bellows of an organ in the 1400s, and later, in the 1800s, was used to describe an overly talkative person.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Moses has his staff eat their snakes, Ramses compares it to making a rabbit appear, a reference to the common magician's trick of making a rabbit appear from a hat, which wasn't done until around 1827.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As Moses is leading the Israelites through the parted Red Sea, he stands upon a tall outcropping of rock on the far end as encouragement to his followers who are still making the journey through. As his people all reach the safety of the other side, the Pharaoh's forces are seen fast approaching the escaping slaves. As Moses gives the signal, we then see the walls of water of the parted Red Sea collapse onto the Egyptian troops while Moses remains standing on the rock escarpment and the remains of the gigantic waves of water sweep onto the ground surrounding his position. Unfortunately, we also see 2 large and obviously fake boulders afloat on top of the water and being swept up onto the beach behind him. It could be argued that the force of the onrushing wave merely swept the rocks along, but the problem with that scenario is the fact that, while a large amount of swiftly moving water does indeed have the capacity to change entire landscapes, solid objects such as stone would be forced along the floor of the seabed or river, and not on the surface.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Early in the film Debra Paget's high heeled shoes can be seen although her dress was designed to hide them.
  
  
• Factual errors: Aaron should not appear with Moses at the end of the film. According to the Bible, when Moses told Joshua to lead the Children of Israel into the Promised Land, Aaron had been long since dead.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Moses and the others were in the shelter on Passover night, we hear someone reading excerpts from Psalms 91. The Psalms were written by King David, who lived some 400 years later than Moses.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Jochebel (Martha Scott) is caught between stone blocks, the tongue on the left-hand stone is obviously too tall and too wide to fit the hole in the right-hand stone.
  
  
• Plot holes: In the initial Egyptian sequence, Nefertiri is referred to as "the throne princess" who "must marry the next Pharaoh." According to ancient Egyptian royal custom, this would mean that she is Seti's daughter, who is expected to marry his successor, regardless of her kinship to that man. But if Seti was explicitly identified as her father, it would be clear that in the end, Ramses married his sister. This was evidently seen as inappropriate for a 1950s audience that would certainly include children. As a result Nefertiri is only called "the throne princess," without any explanation as to why she enjoys that distinction.
  
  
• Factual errors: The tablets shown are written on one side each. Exodus 32:15 clearly states, "The tables were written on both their sides..."
  
  

Related Links