Cecil B. DeMille and his Ten Commandments

Meanwhile, director Cecil B. DeMille was in the process of filming his cinematic epic, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. Inspired by what he had heard of the program, he called Judge Ruegemer and suggested making permanent monuments out of the Ten Commandments, more durable than the paper copies, that could stand “in courthouse squares, city halls, and public parks” as “permanent reminders to the youth of the day.” Together, they decided that granite monoliths would be the most appropriate representation of the Commandments and worked to have them distributed across America. Thus the Fraternal Order of Eagles helped the commercial success of the movie, “urg[ing] its members to support the Ten Commandments movie as it was released in cities across the country,” and DeMille and Paramount Pictures benefited from the good press. According to researcher Sue Hoffman:

DeMille was honored in 1956 by the [Fraternal Order of Eagles] for his valuable suggestions regarding the monoliths, the gift of a replica of one of the tablets of the Ten Commandments made from Mount Sinai granite in which DeMille allowed a facsimile to be used in the larger versions, and the continued support of allowing Paramount Pictures to have three of the actors from The Ten Commandments to be present at a few of the unveilings of the monoliths.

Additionally, in every city in which it was shown, Paramount Pictures asked the theaters:

to designate one night as Eagles Night, to turn over to the local aeries all tickets that were sold by Eagle members for that night, and out of the proceeds, a percentage would be set aside earmarked for the carrying out of the Ten Commandments’ program.

And so it was Judge Ruegemer’s ambitious juvenile morality campaign, with the help of Hollywood, that prompted the spread of the iconic Ten Commandments landmarks that now stand on city property, nationwide.