favorite movies #24: planet of the apes

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #24 - Planet of the Apes (1968) - Before HBO and streaming it was a big deal to premiere theatrical movies on TV. Seeing Planet of the Apes for the first time with my family (probably in summertime) was the beginning of our shared love of movies. So many things about this movie, apart from the cool monkeys rule the world theme are memorable. It was an early experience of a post-apocalyptic world and a twist ending. And the “they always kill the black guy” trope that always irritated me in films and movies at at early age. And Charlton Heston looked great in that loincloth.

George Taylor (Charlton Heston): Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!

moses, moses, moses

A friend asked me yesterday if I had any Easter traditions and I had to think about it. When I was a kid we didn't always make it to church on Sundays, as Dad was sometimes working, or just wanted to sleep in (and Mom didn't drive back then), but we never missed an Easter service, and I remember looking forward to it, as we would always get a hyacinth or lily to plant in the garden when we got home.

The lotus flower jewelry, the pleated gown, the tasseled pillows — the details are fabulous

Anne Baxter's Nefretiri may be in love with Charlton Heston's Moses, but the real chemistry of this movie is with Yul Brynner's Rameses — hot cha cha

Easter was also a holiday when we would see our relatives, usually traveling. One year we actually got snowed in while visiting our relatives in Long Island — there was a freak April blizzard that year. It was fun to have to "camp in" and wait for the roads to clear.

My Italian grandma would frequently make sfincione at Eastertime, a fabulous, savory family recipe which I have mentioned before.

Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora with Charlton Heston's Moses

As sharp as the HD is, it also really emphasizes all the rear-screen projection, which makes many of the "exteriors" look like collage

When I was ten years old my other grandmother came home from a trip to Russia and the Ukraine with a pysanky kit and I learned how to make beautiful Ukrainian Easter eggs. Off and on through the years I've pulled it out and given it a whirl. I think I learned to draw, or at least do so with a steadier hand, from melting wax and using the stylus that came with the kit, drawing intricate designs on the curved surface of an egg.

When I moved to D.C. from N.Y., my cousin Ann and I created our own Easter traditions. The first few years she made "Lamb of God" for our holiday meal, following the "recipes" from the Bible as closely as possible, down to the bitter herbs and unleavened bread. But as the years went on, we started to favor going out at Easter, and most years would go to a favorite Greek restaurant in Old Town Alexandria, where we could have red-dyed eggs, see a boar roasted on a spit (although I always ordered chicken) and hear great music amid the breaking of plates.

Of course once I had my daughter, Easter egg hunts and dyeing Easter eggs made a reappearance in my life. My daughter and I are fond of attending a local Easter egg hunt, and the Easter Bunny is still making a yearly appearance at our house, but for how much longer I'm not sure.

Moses as the Prince of Egypt — L-R: Yul Brynner, Vincent Price, Charlton Heston and John Derek

Moses as the scourge of Pharoah — Look out Rameses, here comes the burning hail

But it occurred to me last night that as much as my Easter traditions have changed over the years, there has been one constant, one tradition — The Ten Commandments. From the time I was a kid this epic has been played every year on television, and almost every year I have tuned in, if not for the entire movie, for at least a favorite scene or two, or three. There is something ridiculous and endearing and still a little awe-inspiring about this film. The dialogue is beyond stilted, as is a lot of the acting, but the costumes are fabulous, and the parts filmed in Egypt, especially the scenes concerning the building of a temple, are first-rate.

This year we are watching it on a big screen HD television, and as many times as I have seen The Ten Commandments, it is like seeing it with fresh eyes. I keep getting lost in the details — Anne Baxter's jewelry and costumes, the detail of the surfaces and sets, the rear screen projection in exterior scenes, which looks even more obvious in HD. As corny as it can be, it's nice to have The Ten Commandments as my Easter tradition. My daughter even made it to Moses being cast out of Egypt and finding water and Sephora in the desert before she conked out on the couch and I had to walk her into bed. Maybe next year she'll be able to stay awake long enough to see the Red Sea part, or at least some of the plagues.

Happy Easter!

Related:

happy easter!

easter without ann

ten commandments

I was watching the glorious Charlton Heston/Yul Brynner Hollywood cheesefest The Ten Commandments the other night - my holiday tradition, along with the dyeing of eggs. We used to watch it almost every Easter when I was a kid. Not sure why the annual telecast was bumped forward one night, but nothing stays the same, does it? When I was ten I think I was overcome by Brynner's and Heston's hotness and decided that Easter to read The Bible. I made it all the way through the first three or four books and then got really bored with all the begats and the extremely misogynistic portrayal of women. So let it be written.

Watching the movie the other night I was struck by two things. First, the only thing missing were song and dance numbers. The whole movie is so saturated in color, at least in the Egyptian sequences, which are of course, the best part, and all the acting is so completely over-the-top that a break for a musical number with Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor wouldn't have seemed out of place. It's impossible not to smile when Nefretiri/Anne Baxter intones, "Moses, Moses, Moses!" Brynner, of course, steals the entire movie and when the camera fades out on him for the last time, all the fun is gone, despite the still-to-come big fifties state-of-the-art parting of the Red Sea special effect. Brynner is bigger-than-life as he is with all of his performances, but somehow in just the right way. The movie tries in vain to keep up with him. He made such an impact on me in this film that when I visited Egypt, no matter where we saw a statue or depiction of Ramses, I always pictured him.

The other thing that really struck me was a scene about halfway through the epic, where Moses has been cast out of Egypt and has settled down for a little domestic bliss with Sephora, played by Yvonne DeCarlo of Lily Munster fame. They are looking at Mt Sinai ("it's only a model!") and he asks the crucial question:

Moses: Does your god live on this mountain?
Sephora: Sinai is His high place, His temple.
Moses: If this god is God, he would live on every mountain, in every valley. He would not be the god of Ishmael or Israel alone, but of all men. It is said he created all men in his image. He would dwell in every heart, every mind, every soul.
Sephora: I do not know about such things, but I know that the mountain trembles when God is there, and the earth trembles, and the clouds are red with fire.

O.K., game over. You lost me. Moses/Heston asked a completely profound question, one that I ponder frequently, and was blown off by an "I drank the Kool-aid" speech of "I don't know, I just believe." Cue the music and bring in the Busby Berkeley dancers.

I know that I have to view the film in the context of when it was made, but I think it's interesting that a movie that is shown every year, possibly watched by some for its religious content, would have such a nugget of a philosophical question embedded, however deeply, under all the other layers of schmaltz, pageantry, melodrama and Technicolor.

This exact question posed by Heston's character is what gets to the heart of my problems with organized religion. Why every sect thinks theirs is the only "right" way is just darn crazy to me. Anyone who has done just the tiniest bit of reading of other cultures' creation and other mythologies has to realize that all humans tell the same stories. Each sect might give the heroes and heroines different names and back stories, but the essential lessons are the same. So what is the problem? Why can't we get past this "my way or the highway" attitude about religion? So let it be done.