by Ryan Smillie

While 1923 saw the then-record-breaking release of Cecil B. DeMille’s original Ten Commandments, another Biblical drama found a much smaller audience, but today seems no less momentous a release. Alla Nazimova’s Salomé is by no means an epic - it runs a brisk 74 minutes and was filmed entirely on one set - but what Nazimova (as producer, star and rumored director) was able to capture under such limited conditions was unprecedented.