The Bible in film in Genesis was the 1904 French film "Joseph Vendu Par Ses Frères" ("Joseph Sold by his Brothers"). Enrico Guazzoni's 1913 Italian epic "Quo Vadis?" is often considered the first successful feature-length motion picture and one of the first films with over two hours running time. Cecil B. DeMille specialized in extravagant epics throughout a career that spanned both the silent and sound eras. His 1923 silent version of "The Ten Commandments" (1923) included spectacular special effects for the parting of the Red Sea. De Mille followed "The Ten Commandments" in 1927 with "King of Kings", a lavish, reverential life of
Henry Churchill de Mille "The Promised Land", based on the teachings of George, but de Mille died of typhoid fever less than a year later and before it could be finished. In 1876 de Mille married Matilda Beatrice "Bebe" Samuel (1853–1923), a native of Liverpool who had come to America with her parents when she was about eighteen. Their son William C. deMille was born in 1878, Cecil B. DeMille in 1881 and daughter Agnes de Mille some ten years later. While at home in Pompton, New Jersey, de Mille contracted pneumonia and died there after a brief struggle on February 10, 1893. He