ARIO BAVA’S APPEARANCE on RAI-TV prompted an offer from the company to su- pervise the special effects for the network’s
FILMED indoors on a sound stage,
this burning bush “exterior” is one of the many illusions engineered by Mario Bava for MOSES THE LAWGIVER.
most ambitious production to date: a lavish, $6,000,000 TV miniseries based on the Old Testament books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, entitled Moses the Lawgiver. An international co-production, the filming was fi- nanced jointly by RAI-TV, the British networks Associ- ated Television (ATV) and Incorporated Television Com- pany (ITC), and CBS Television in America. The series was the brainchild of producer Vincenzo Labella (b. 1937)—a Biblical scholar who had previously served as a technical advisor on Michael Curtiz’ Francis of Assisi (1961) and Carol Reed’s The Agony and the Ec- stasy (1965)—and writer–director Gianfranco De Bosio. Born September 16, 1924, in Verona, De Bosio wanted to tell the story of Moses as it had never been told onscreen before—in wholly realistic dimensions.
