The Bible in film religious epics produced as vehicles for its biggest stars. "Samson and Delilah" was the biggest moneymaking movie of 1949 and is considered the picture that sparked the biblical-epic film craze of the 1950s. It was followed by two of 1951’s biggest box-office hits, "Quo Vadis" and "David and Bathsheba". Charlton Heston starred in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur". According to author Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, in the 1950s and 1960s, during the era of the production code, "the most acceptable cinematic path for movies to incorporate sex and violence was the biblical epic". Basing a film on the Bible
Cecil B. DeMille refers to himself in one instance as "Cecil B. DeAldrin", as a humorous nod to DeMille. DeMille made seventy features. In spite of careful storage in his film vaults, seven films—the early silents: "The Arab", "The Wild Goose Chase", "Chimmie Fadden", "The Dream Girl", "We Can't Have Everything", "The Devil Stone", and the 1918 remake "The Squaw Man"—were lost to nitrate decomposition. Roughly twenty of his silent features are available in commercial DVD format. The sound films are in three groups: 1. The three films DeMille produced at M-G-M are now owned by Warner Bros. (through Turner Entertainment). 2. The