April 20, 2010

Post date: May 2, 2010 9:38:06 PM

Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge is located north of Santa Barbara. The refuge has the largest and most extensive coastal sand dunes in California.

Cecil B. DeMille filmed his original The Ten Commandments at this location in 1923. Before filming began, an entire Egyptian "City of the Pharaoh" was constructed on the dunes. The scale of the production was amazing! The elaborate set contained 300 chariots, 21 sphinxes weighing 5 tons each, and 4 statues of Ramses that were each 35 feet tall!

When filming ended, the set was secretly buried in the sand. Now historians are using ground-penetrating radar to recover pieces of the set for display in the Dunes Center Museum.

A documentary on the film history of the area by Peter Brosnan is currently in production and set for release in summer 2010. Past "Sahara" movies filmed on the dunes starred Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, Gary Cooper, and Marlene Dietrich. A more recent movie filmed on the dunes was Pirates of the Caribbean starring Johnny Depp.

Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge

1923 Silent Movie

Sphinx head from The Ten Commandments

City of the Pharaoh from The Ten Commandments

Recovered pieces of the set from The Ten Commandments

Past movie filmed on the dunes