Along California ’s Central Coast sits a piece of cinematic account that was once quite literally lose in the sands of time .
In 1923 , famously off-the-wall pic director Cecil B. DeMille began filming one of his most challenging works , the silent filmThe Ten Commandments . The theatrical blockbuster chronicled the scriptural level of Moses , along with other tales prompt by the Old Testament . However , the movie ’s true play lay not in its plot , but in its product , write David FerryforOutside .
Computer - generated effects obviously did n’t exist , so DeMille set up a giant Pharaonic film set in the centre of a stint of desert 150 miles north of Los Angeles ( DeMille ’s partial remake ofThe Ten Commandments , the 1956 variation starring Charlton Heston , was filmed on location in Egypt and around Mount Sinai ) . The stupendous fake city boast an 800 - foot - retentive Egyptian temple , a series of five - long ton sphinxes , four 35 - metrical foot - grandiloquent statues of Ramses II , and a majestic gate wall . It was one of the largest and most expensive movie sets in story . shortly , it became know as one of the most cursed .
The projection ended up cost DeMille so much money that he run his crew remonstrate , step on it against clip to enclose up filming so he could cut production expenses . DeMille finished the movie in three week , but one large problem still remained : the circle . According to an correspondence struck with the land ’s owners , DeMille was to raze the Egyptian synagogue before he bequeath . He could go back on the raft , but there was always the chance that other directors might practice the fake metropolis to stage their own ape films , piggybacking on DeMille ’s imagination .
DeMille choose the garish — and most efficacious — manner to rap the city to the ground : dynamite . Bulldozers dumped Baroness Dudevant over the synagogue ’s crumbled remains , where they lay undiscovered for 60 years until a filmmaker named Peter Brosnan came looking for them .
As a film scholar , Brosnan had take heed urban myth about the bury city , and years later he wanted to find it and take a documentary . He fulfil a local rancher who helped him situate piece of poultice of Paris poke out from underneath a large sand dune — undeniable remains of DeMille ’s originalThe Ten Commandments .
archeologist and cinephiles mobilize around Brosnan to help him produce his documentary project calledThe Lost City . Obstacles delayed the film ’s progression , however , and thanks to a lack of funds and environmental limitation , excavation was delayed . Eventually , Brosnan ran out of money and had to discontinue digging .
After years of inactiveness , Brosnan ’s labor make novel life after an anon. conferrer contributed money toward the digging in 2010 . In 2014 , Brosnan was able-bodied to film a group of archaeologist as they uncovered a sphynx . Now , he ’s working with past footage to complete a final draft of his moving picture .
Brosnan go for for the documentary to hit motion picture festivals sometime in the near future . However , Outsidereports that DeMille ’s fall back city is becoming damaged as violent storm displace the mineral - rich Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin that preserves the ruins . fourth dimension is n’t on Brosnan ’s side , and , unluckily , neither is money . Despite the recent inflow of funds , he still does n’t have the resources to dig up the entire set .
Members of the public ca n’t visit the “ City of the Pharaoh , ” but original artifacts from the fixed areon displayat theGuadalupe - Nipomo Dunes Centerand theNAPA Auto Parts entrepot / museumin Guadalupe , California . There , the colored relic pay homage to a Laputan film director — and to a bygone Hollywood era in which lay excogitation provided almost as much spectacle as a movie itself .
watch out some footage of both the film ’s original set and its turn up remains above .
[ h / tOutside , Smithsonian ]
