The 1923 film begins with a title card: “Our modern world defined God as a ‘religious complex’ and laughed at the Ten Commandments as OLD FASHIONED. That version, made half a decade after World War I, was a treatment that flattered Christian sensibilities in a time of Jazz Age pearl-clutching. Such praise was not forthcoming however, for Zukor and DeMille’s first go at the Moses story. In the end, the Jewish community did thank DeMille, with prizes from the National Women’s League of the United Synagogues of America and the Maryland State Council of the American Jewish Congress. “We should get down on our knees and say ‘Thank you.’” “After we have just lived through a horrible war where our people were systematically executed, we have a man who makes a film praising the Jewish people,” Zukor is said to have erupted.
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