Bob Hope bumped into Chuck Heston on the Paramount lot while the latter was filming The Ten Commandments. Heston was grousing about the amount of time required in the makeup chair to be transformed into Moses. Without missing a beat, Hope fired back, “Yeah, it’s tough being a Jew.” (The quip has also been attributed to co-star Edward G. Robinson.) A smile broke across my face when publicist Joe Ditler assured me that The Ten Commandments will indeed screen in the Coronado Villages’ 200-seat auditorium aka the big house. My first of many subsequent viewings took place in Chicago’s Roosevelt Theatre, a 1600-seat picture palace with a screen that seemed to stretch for blocks. I was ten and transfixed; DeMille had me at the sinuous Technicolor green “angel of death” that swept through the streets of backlot Egypt. And for you youngsters in the audience, wait until you see what a special effects team could do before CGI left them imaginationally strapped to a virtual display unit. Those who’ve never experienced the film in a theatre now have 14 chances to do so when the film screens twice daily for a week. – Scott Marks