One of the highlights of the Easter season is the resurrection of Hollywood’s blockbuster Bible-inspired movies on TV. Movies such as “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” “The Robe” and “Barabbas” pop up this time of year like Easter lilies. I watch all of them, and by the end of Easter Sunday I am ready to run down to the Portneuf River and get baptized.

But then I glance outside and see that it’s snowing, and the wind is howling, forcing me to come back to my senses as I remember that I am not living in Jordan.

“Ben-Hur” and “The Ten Commandments,” epics of the genre, feature common elements such as blaring soundtracks, 20th-century hairdos on ancient Romans and Egyptians, and characters with perfect teeth at a time when people cleaned their teeth with a stick and believed that dogs' teeth boiled in wine made an excellent mouth rinse to prevent tooth decay.

But primarily, the truly outstanding common feature of both films is Academy-Award winning actor Charlton Heston starring in the lead roles as Ben-Hur and Moses.

I imagine that younger adults only identify Heston as the former president of the National Rifle Association who famously waved a musket overhead while declaring in a speech that he would only give up his gun when they take it “From my cold, dead hands!” Which they apparently did in 2008 so as to fit him into his coffin.

Charlton Heston’s life was a political roller coaster as he evolved from civil-rights demonstrator to five-term NRA president. I suppose the two roles can go together. Heston once observed, “I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses. If that doesn’t create an ego problem, nothing does.” Perhaps he was a man who just wanted a starring role in whatever cause he chose to support.

All I know is that on its 66th anniversary the film, “The Ten Commandments” has for the most part held up well, and that the role of Moses was custom made for Charlton Heston.

Besides Heston’s Moses, other highlights of the film include Yul Brynner as Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses. Brynner appears bare-chested throughout the story, seemingly competing with Heston as to who is the most buff.

The movie’s special effects for a 1956 production are also quite impressive. Most notable are the burning bush, the parting of the sea and Yul Brynner’s chest.

One questionable aspect of the film is the casting of Edward G. Robinson as the devious Israelite Dathan who backstabs about everyone. It’s simply hard to watch a bare-chested Robinson in flowing robes, riding a chariot when he normally plays a cigar-chewing, Al Capone-type gangster snarling lines like “Listen, you crummy flat-footed copper, you want me, come and get me.”

I also have some qualms concerning the role of plagues in the film. According to the Bible, Moses sends a series of plagues upon Egypt to increase pressure on Ramses to set the Hebrews free. The plagues included swarms of gnats, mosquitoes and locusts — which just sounds like a typical camping trip to me.

I was disappointed to read that movie director Cecil B. DeMille decided to omit the plague of frogs scene after filming it. The scene depicted frogs hopping up from the Nile and chasing Queen Nefretiri and other Egyptians all through the palace. Dang! Sounds like a potential showstopper to me.

Along with a list of Hollywood-elite stars in “The Ten Commandments,” there are lots of animals. The Exodus scene alone features a cast of 15,000 animals, all of which perform beautifully except for one stubborn donkey and a gaggle of geese that simply cannot follow the script and drift aimlessly from the rest of the menagerie.

Another movie shortcoming is the only G-rated orgy scene ever filmed. The scene took three weeks to complete because Cecil B. DeMille wanted an orgy that would be inoffensive to children viewers!

In it, the Hebrews are supposedly going wild, drinking wine and dancing, sinning “a great sin” according to the Bible. But honestly, I attended high school keggers that would put the actors’ revelry to shame.

Meanwhile, Moses is up on Mt. Sinai patiently waiting for God, who you’d think would have access to pen and paper, to etch out the Commandments on stone tablets. It’s easy to imagine Moses saying, “Please, Lord, I gotta get back to the orgy to… uh, you know, stop it. Wouldn’t five commandments do the job?”

It’s also easy to believe that Moses, who earlier had drowned the entire Egyptian army in the sea, read the Commandment “Thou shall not kill” and thought “Oops!”

During an interview following the movie’s release, Charlton Heston said that he wore nine different beards during the filming. The beards are impressive, but it’s Moses’ hairdo that caught my eye.

I never thought about it when watching the movie as a young man since it wasn’t an issue back then. But if I could wake up tomorrow with Moses’ hairdo, that would truly be a miracle.

Mike Murphy of Pocatello is an award-winning columnist whose articles are syndicated by Senior Wire. He published a book titled “Tortoise Crossing – Expect Long Delays,” which is a collection of 100 of his favorite columns. It is available on Amazon.com.