Ed and The Ten Commandments

For almost thirty years, Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club had been holding the media camp first in front of UC and then later near the Skating Rink of Burnham Park. They stopped camping in front of UC was because of their members decided to hang himself there. Consider it cursed, said Peppot Ilagan so they encamped to another site which later became Camp Peppot when he died. It is often mistaken for Kampupot. From Holy Wednesday till Easter Sunday, the media of Baguio are there in various stages of inebriation. Sometimes presidents would come. This year, I saw Chavit, Pichay and Anne Dominique Coseteng, who has a house near the Little Flower Novitiate. Every year if he can make it, Richard Carino, the dashing councilor, would play his organ. March Fianza and Pacyay would sing folk songs with him. We miss Conrad Marzan because he has remarried and is now in Las Vegas. We just miss Steve Hamada, Bagnos Cudiamat and Willie Cacdac who was in charge of the cooking. Piltel would lend a phone. I asked for Wifi to no avail. Every Good Friday some of the young media thought they can beat Mondax in gambling. They never can. Pacyay lost P2,000 once. Eli R stopped playing with Mondax and consoled himself that he had better chances with women. Beer has been institutionalized and sometimes San Miguel gives those crazy hard liquor promo which are engulfed anyway, thank you. Swanny D is busy campaigning for Angara so he made himself scarce. This year we have a TV courtesy of Sky and this Good Friday, the media decided to watch Ten Commandments. And what misfortune they had when Ed Cabagnot, the demonic head of the Film Department of CCP decided to visit. He was just vamping on the Ten Commandments and naming all the glamorous actresses and choreographers in that movie. The parting of the Red Sea won the Oscar for Special Effects, while the worship of the Golden Calf owed something to opera staging of Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila. I, too, didn’t notice it but to make Ten Commandments at the height of Hollywood Glamour is just so un-PC. The glamorous and oiled Egyptian slaves. That Great Hollywood Backlot. Ed said it's Montana but the others must have been made in Hollywood. I read somewhere about Cecil B. DeMille Lost City
These are other stats on Ten Commandments:

Height of the set - 120 feet
Width of the set - 720 feet
Statuary in the set - 1,000,000 pounds
Number of construction workers employed - 1,500
Lumber in the set - 500,000 feet
Amount of nails - 25,000 pounds
Amount of reinforcing cables - 75 miles
Number of actors on the site - 3,500
Number of cooks - 125
Number of sandwiches per day - 7,500
Number of oranges per day - 2,500
Number of apples per day - 2,500
Number of chariots built for the film - 300
Number of animals on the site - 5,000
Number of pounds of hay per day - 20,000

Charlton Heston is Moses but Ed said Yul Brynner's Pharaoh Rameses II virtually launched that condom. Edward G. Robinson is Dathan and Yvonne De Carlo is Sephora with the flower on her hair. Sir Cedric Hardwicke is Pharaoh Seti I, Nina Foch is Bithiah and Vincent Price is Baka, the Golden Calf.