Cecil B. DeMille Christian and Jewish heritage to convey a message of tolerance. "The Crusades" was the first film to show accord between Christians and Muslims. DeMille received more than a dozen awards from Jewish religious and cultural groups, including B’nai B’rith. In 1954, he was seeking approval for a lavish remake of his 1923 silent film "The Ten Commandments". He went before the Paramount board of directors, which was mostly Jewish-American. The members rejected his proposal, even though his last two films, "Samson and Delilah" and "The Greatest Show on Earth", had been record-breaking hits. Adolph Zukor, the chairman of the board,
The Buccaneer (1938 film) Byington, Douglass Dumbrille, Beulah Bondi and Anthony Quinn in supporting roles. It is one of the few pre-1950 sound films by Paramount to remain under that studio's ownership (partly so the remake could be filmed), whereas most films from that era had been sold to EMKA, Ltd. – now part of NBCUniversal Television Distribution – in the early television era. Cecil B. DeMille remade the film in 1958 in Technicolor and VistaVision with the same title, but because of ill health, he allowed Henry Wilcoxon, his longtime friend and associate, to produce it, and the film was directed by Anthony