Filmmaker Peter Brosnan digs up the set of the 1923 film 'The Ten Commandments', long buried in the sands of California' | dG1fUnlGYjFBNkpIaDA
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00:00Archaeologists have begun excavating the city of the pharaohs.
00:09But the dike isn't near the Nile, it's near the Pacific.
00:12An ancient Egyptian city.
00:14It was the biggest set ever built for the most expensive movie that had ever been made.
00:19The silent version of Cecil B. DeMille's epic, The Ten Commandments.
00:24I first heard about the lost city one night in 1982.
00:28My house had just burned down, I'd moved in with Bruce Cardozo.
00:31One night he began telling me this crazy story about Cecil B. DeMille burying sphinxes in
00:36the middle of California.
00:37When he sobered up the next morning he said, did you tell me a story about DeMille burying
00:41sphinxes?
00:42We start running up this sand dune and we see a lot of debris all over the surface.
00:49But it had to be a Cecil B. DeMille set that archaeologists would be digging up.
00:54It was a very secretive operation.
00:57Oops, there's a big anomaly right there.
00:59You got something?
01:00That's a big one.
01:01I think we have a real good chance of finding a lot of real interesting things once we start
01:05the excavation out here.
01:08The project has come to a halt.
01:10The crew was notified of a layoff 72 hours before their mobilization.
01:14This would have helped us with sales tax, would have helped us with exposure.
01:18There's enough blame to go around sometimes with these projects.
01:21Somebody in Santa Barbara doesn't want this to happen.
01:24Peter verges on the manic, I think, to be honest.
01:27It's a Captain Ahab kind of obsession.
01:29You need somebody that will not stop until the job is completed.
01:34No we're not going to give you money, no we're not going to give you permits, no there's
01:37nothing buried there.
01:38Damn it, I was going to prove to the world that there was something buried there.