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An epic restoration effort

History glows on the screen as Paramount introduces a digital restoration of the longer, road show version of 1956’s ‘The Ten Commandments.’

There will be a lot of history on display Monday night when the American Cinematheque presents Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as the power-mad pharaoh, Rameses — and not just of the biblical kind.

“Ten Commandments” has a special place in Hollywood lore: It was DeMille’s last film and made Heston a superstar. The blockbuster is being shown at the Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, which is celebrating its 88th birthday that night.

The screening also marks the premiere of the new digital restoration of the road show version of the film (road show versions were generally longer than versions at local theaters and were screened in movie palaces with reserved seating and bookings running for as long as nine months).

The film will be introduced by two key figures at Paramount Pictures responsible for the restoration: Andrea Kalas, vice president of archives, and Ronald F. Smith, vice president of restoration. In addition to the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the motion picture academy’s archive, every major studio in town has its own archive division working to restore and preserve its rich, historical library, and Paramount is no exception. But last year, Kalas, who had worked for the British Film Institute and other archives, was brought on staff to beef up the studio’s archival mission.

Noted Kalas: “It was a chance to look back and say, what can we do with this archive? Are there preservations that need to be done? Are there restorations that need to be done? What about the props and costumes?”

Kalas has been urging Paramount to build a museum on the lot. “I think in a lot of ways when people come to do the tour on this lot, opposed to other lots, this is the closest they can sort of get to a tangible sense of the concept of Hollywood. A museum would really illustrate that much better. If we did an exhibition on ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ which sort of stars the Paramount lot and has DeMille in it, it would give a window into the history of motion pictures through Paramount. That is the concept we are trying to get across. It is not greenlit yet.”