It was based on the ""putting-on-a-show"" tradition stemming from MGM""s first sound film,The Broadway Melody (1929), another "backstage musical.He went into hiding posing as an Earthling named Carpenter while temporarily residing in a boarding house with a human family (single mother/widow Helen (Patricia Neal) and her son Bobby (Billy Gray)), in order to observe and understand heir Earthly lives, and also to attempt to establish contact with Earth""s leading scientist Dr.In the middle of the night, a white van (and other white vehicles) with white-garbed attendants removed Marge""s body from her motel room.Then, Rameses spitefully dared Moses to do better.To reward and challenge Moses, Sethi put him in charge of managing the building project ("You build my city"), and finishing the construction of the Treasure City area for Sethi""s upcoming Jubilee that had been botched by Rameses.