Review of The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille

"The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille" is about an effort to unearth one of the largest movie sets...that of the 1923 version of "The Ten Commandments". Instead of filming the desert scenes in the Middle East (as they did with DeMille's remake), this one was made in the town of Guadalupe, Califoria...a barren area of sand dunes pretty much in the middle of no where. Surprisingly, this story took far longer than expected. While initial digging at the site began in 1990, it wasn't until nearly 30 years later that the project was continued. Why? Well, two reasons. The first was money...it cost money to do this sort of work and getting consistent funding was an issue. The second, the bigger issue, was bureaucracy. The film turned out to be a great example of how government can run amok...and has less interest in the good of the people and more in creating roadblocks for the sake of roadblocks. In other words, because a few small minded people could stop the dig, they often did...even when they had written permission by state officials allowing the dig to take place. And, sadly, this happened again and again and again! To me, this is THE story...how nameless non-elected folks did their best to destroy this project....because they could. This film is about this process...and at least how the dig continued through the years, off and on as best it could. In addition to chronicling the dig, the film spends a lot of time discussing director Cecil B. DeMille's life, career and both his Ten Commandments films.

Overall, this project was obviously a labor of love. Because the documentary was made on the cheap, I can forgive some less than perfect cinematography. In fact, given what they were up against...it is an incredible movie. Fascinating and maddening at the same time. The worst part about all this controversy is that the set was never made to last....and because so many roadblocks were put in place, most of the set was never unearthed and will soon literally vanish.