Forgotten Commandments: A Frankensteined Bible Movie That Mostly Just Recycles

Is this actually worth your time?

Honestly, only if you’re the kind of person who enjoys watching how studios used to pinch pennies by recycling old footage. If you’re here for a coherent retelling of the Exodus, you’re going to be frustrated. It’s disjointed, weird, and clearly made by people who were more concerned with the bottom line than the narrative flow. 🤷‍♂️

The whole thing starts off as some standard 1930s melodrama. You’ve got people talking about religion and morality in rooms that look a bit too stiff, even for the time. Then, suddenly, the movie decides, "Hey, why film our own spectacle when we have DeMille’s old reels lying around?" and just dumps a massive block of the 1923 The Ten Commandments right into the middle of the plot.

The disconnect is loud.

One minute you’re watching a character stare off into space, and the next, you’re looking at grand, sweeping desert shots that don't match the lighting or the vibe at all. It’s like listening to a pop song that keeps getting interrupted by a dusty radio broadcast from twenty years prior. It’s disorienting.

John Carradine is in here, obviously, because he was in everything back then. He brings that strange, intense energy he always had, even when he’s just standing there reacting to a story being told to him. He’s the only thing keeping the frame from feeling totally hollow.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Forgotten Commandments (1932) through its definitive frames.

I couldn't help but think about how much easier it is to appreciate a film like Frozen River, where the environment actually informs the story instead of just being a patch-job. In Forgotten Commandments, the environments are fighting each other.

The transition between the "real" plot and the silent footage is so abrupt it’s almost funny. It’s the kind of editing choice that makes you wonder if the projectionist just fell asleep and dropped the wrong reel in. I spent a good five minutes just staring at the grain difference between the two eras of film stock. 🎞️

If you want to see how Hollywood used to play these games, watch it. If you want to watch a movie that actually has a soul of its own, maybe skip this one. It’s a relic of a time when the studio system treated film like a Lego set—just snap parts together and hope nobody notices the gaps.

• That weird moment where the dialogue stops and the silent epic takes over for what feels like an eternity.
• Carradine is definitely doing the heavy lifting here.
• The framing device is so thin you could poke a finger through it.