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Cecil B. DeMille, Classical Hollywood, and Modern American Mass Culture pp 253–304Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Behold Their Mighty Hands

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Abstract

This chapter analyzes the powers of commercial culture during the last decade of DeMille’s professional life. The chapter argues that the director’s remarkable late-career success was based largely on his ability to refashion an appealing and popular brand that was manifest in the public’s awareness of a unique “DeMille genre.” Noting the struggles, at mid-century, by both industry insiders and academics to come to terms with a rapidly changing mass audience, the chapter explores both The Greatest Show on Earth and The Ten Commandments. Showing a greater affinity for his earlier themes than those of the late-1930s and 1940s, these films highlighted a syntax of consensus through the shared semantics of visual pleasure, a stylized realism, and the spectacle of crowds. A close reading of passages common to both the 1923 and 1956 releases of his Biblical epic identifies how DeMille modified his filmmaking in the modern era.

Cecil B. DeMille is indeed Mr. Motion Picture. His films have brought something new to the theaters. They call them customers.

Bob Hope, March 19, 1953 (Quoted in Essoe and Lee, DeMille, 208)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    U.S. Bureau of Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington D. C.: 1960), 15. Profits tabulated in Jowett , The Democratic Art, 483–484.

  2. 2.

    DeMille quipped to Art Arthur, who was researching materials for a biography, that he had “won” eleven Oscars, “but they only gave me three.” In addition to Best Picture, in 1953, DeMille’s seventy films won only six Oscars. See Birchard , DeMille’s Hollywood, 349, 403 n.20. Gross and profit estimates for DeMille’s last three pictures—Unconquered, Samson & Delilah, and The Greatest Show on Earth—are also taken from Birchard’s work.

  3. 3.

    “The Moving Picture and National Character,” American Review of Reviews (September, 1910): 315–320.

  4. 4.

    Susan Ohmer , “The Science of Pleasure: George Gallup and audience research in Hollywood” in Stokes and Maltby , eds. Identifying Hollywood’s Audiences: Cultural Identity and the Movies (London: British Film Institute, 1999), 62.

  5. 5.

    Sklar , Movie-Made America, 269, 273–275.

  6. 6.

    Muscio , Hollywood’s New Deal, 144–145, 192–193. Jowett , The Democratic Art, 347, 352–354.

  7. 7.

    Jowett , The Democratic Art, 365. Maltby , Harmless Entertainment, 68. Bruce A. Austin, “The Development and Decline of the Drive-In Movie Theater,” in Austin, Current Research in Film, 59–91. Balio , United Artists: The Company That Changed the Film Industry, 41–51.

  8. 8.

    Austin, “Drive-In Movie Theater,” in Austin, Current Research in Film, 69. Gallup quoted in Olmer, “The Science of Pleasure,” in Identifying Hollywood’s Audiences, 61–80. 65, 75–76. Maltby , Harmless Entertainment, 52. May, The Big Tomorrow, 260.

  9. 9.

    Maltby, Harmless Entertainment, 65–68. Sklar , Movie-Made America, 271–272.

  10. 10.

    Preview cards in BYU, Box 508, Folder 18.

  11. 11.

    Franklin Fearing , “A Word of Caution for the Intelligent Consumer of Motion Pictures,” Quarterly of Film, Radio, and Television Vol 6 (1952): 132, 140. See also Ernest Bornemann, “The Public Opinion Myth.” Harper’s Magazine (July 1947): 30–40. Reisman and Reisman. “Movies and Audiences,” American Quarterly 4:3 (Autumn 1952): 195–196.

  12. 12.

    For the influence of the Frankfurt School at this point, see the Introduction or Staiger , Media Reception Studies, 29–31, 45–47. For American intellectual response, see James B. Gilbert, “Popular Culture,” American Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1/2, Special Issue: Contemporary America (Spring-Summer, 1983): 144–146. Judith Mayne, Cinema and Spectatorship, 18.

  13. 13.

    Stacey, Star Gazing, 46, 123.

  14. 14.

    Koury, Yes Mr. DeMille, 206. Mankiewicz in BYU, Box 489, Folder 1. Selznick quoted in Rudy Behlmer, Ed. Memo from David O. Selznick (New York: The Viking Press, 1972), 402.

  15. 15.

    For “figure in breeches,” see Brownlow , The Parade’s Gone By, 71. TIME magazine quoted in Hutton , Backstage You Can Have, 263. For “cash culture,” Perlmutter, “For God, Country, & Whoopee: De Mille and the Floss” Film Comment (Jan-Feb 1976): 24–28. Reisman and Reisman, “Movies and Audiences,” 196.

  16. 16.

    Auriol quoted in Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, “Samson, Cecil and Delilah,” Wide Angle XI:4 (October 1989): 34–36.

  17. 17.

    Neale , Genre and Hollywood (New York: Routledge, 2000), 2–3, 32. For his introduction of the analytical dichotomy defining genre, see Altman , “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre,” Cinema Journal 23:3 (1984): 6–18.

  18. 18.

    See Staiger , Media Reception Studies, 122–124; Belton , American Cinema/American Culture, 119–121.

  19. 19.

    For an introduction to the ways that scholars began to re-interpret the disruptive affectation of melodrama , see Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976).

  20. 20.

    For quotes see Box 653, Folder 6; Box 445 Folder 14, emphasis in the original.

  21. 21.

    For “mind of God” and promotional interview, see BYU, Box 650. Folder 2. See also, BYU, Box 744, Folder 6; BYU, Box 650, Folder 2; Hayne , Autobiography, 433. For DeMille to Heston , see MHL, Charlton Heston Papers, “Ten Commandments – Publicity.”

  22. 22.

    For production notes see BYU, Box 653, Folder 6; BYU, Box 644, Folder 7. DeMille quoted in Louvish , A Life in Art, 396–398. For his struggles with writing, see Koury , Yes, Mr. DeMille, 145; Hutton , Backstage You Can Have, 256; Lasky, Jr. Whatever Happened to Hollywood, 64, 302–303.

  23. 23.

    Lasky Jr. quoted in Orrison, Written in Stone, 37.

  24. 24.

    Eyman , Empire of Dreams, 5, 323–325. Auriol quoted in Doniol-Valcroze, “Samson, Cecil and Delilah,” 38. Leisen quoted in Chierichetti, Mitchell Leisen, 28.

  25. 25.

    For GSOE origins, see BYU, Box 445 Folder 14. For 1940 discussion see BYU, Box 633, Folder 9. Wilcoxon attended the New York conference and describes the exchange in Orrison, Lionheart in Hollywood, 226–229.

  26. 26.

    For “lost audience” see BYU, Box 650, Folder 2, emphasis added. For “shock to him,” see BYU, Box 491, Folder 12.

  27. 27.

    DeMille and del Valle quoted in Eyman , Empire of Dreams, 470. For “over the horizon,” see BYU, Box 650, Folder 2. For “I am not making,” see BYU, Box 498, Folder 22.

  28. 28.

    For “re-issues,” DeMille quoted in Essoe and Lee, DeMille, 14. For “later experience,” see BYU, Box 650, Folder 2. For DeMille’s re-working of Sign of the Cross, see BYU, Box 508, Folders 3, 12, 13, 14, 18; Box 509, Folders 1, 3. For Land of Liberty, see Box 492, Folder 6. For legal concerns, see BYU, Box 315, Folder 6. DeMille also expressed interest in remaking The Covered Wagon, see BYU, Box 1040, Folder 3.

  29. 29.

    DeMille on “toughest production” quoted in Louvish , A Life in Art, 395, 396, 402; see also Birchard , DeMille’s Hollywood, 347; MHL, Hedda Hopper Papers, Folder 549, “Cecil B. DeMille.” Hutton , Backstage You Can Have, 261. For “Nothing stops,” see BYU, Box 644, Folder 6. See also BYU, Box 633, Folder 9; Box 644, Folder 7; Box 653, Folder 6.

  30. 30.

    For letters home, see BYU, Box 453, Folder 1. Sir Cedric Hardwicke and James Brough, A Victorian in Orbit (Garden City: Doubleday, 1961), 283. For on-location direction, see Birchard , DeMille’s Hollywood, 356, 361; Eyman , Empire of Dreams, 446, 458.

  31. 31.

    For “terrified” see BYU, Box 10, Folder 24. Cecilia quoted in Edwards, The DeMilles, 174–5. For “deep in the gulley” see BYU, Box 650, Folder 2. Actor John Carradine recalled the scene of his heart attack in Eyman , Empire of Dreams, 466.

  32. 32.

    Crowther review in The New York Times (November 9, 1956), 35:2. David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film, 181–182.

  33. 33.

    Agee , Agee on Film, 378–380.

  34. 34.

    Cukor quoted in Lambert, On Cukor, 70. Pickford quoted in Brownlow , The Parade’s Gone By, 577. For “the minute,” see BYU, Box 309 Folder 4. For “one person,” see BYU, Box 549, Folder 7.

  35. 35.

    For “climax,” see BYU, Box 650, Folder 2. He meticulously planned for nearly sixty dissolves in The Sign of the Cross, see BYU, Box 505, Folder 13. For DeMille’s comments about visual editing, see BYU, Box 549, Folder 7. For Jensen , see Orrison, Written in Stone, 67, 73. Koury , Yes, Mr. DeMille, 22, 158. Marley and Heston cited in MHL, Charlton Heston Papers, “The Ten Commandments – Publicity.” Price quoted in Eyman , Empire of Dreams, 458. de Mille, “Goodnight C.B.,” 130.

  36. 36.

    DeMille on “bathrooms,” in BYU, Box 305, Folder 8. For “background business,” see BYU, Box 549, Folder 7. For DeMille’s early comments regarding the impact of new technologies on realism see BYU, Box 315, Folders 3, 4; Box 324, Folder 15.

  37. 37.

    For “trickery,” see BYU, Box 305, Folder 13. For “more than a front row,” see MHL, Hedda Hopper Papers, Folder 549, “Cecil B. DeMille.” As a measure of the perceived importance of the film’s pre-production research, DeMille’s leading investigator published a scholarly book summarizing their findings. Noerdlinger, Moses and Egypt: The Documentation to the Motion Picture The Ten Commandments (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, 1956).

  38. 38.

    Hutton , Backstage You Can Have, 260. DeMille on the “great symphony” in BYU, Box 646, Folder 3. Review of The Greatest Show on Earth, by Crowther , New York Times (January 11 1952), 17:2.

  39. 39.

    Louvish , A Life in Art, 424. Birchard , DeMille’s Hollywood, 353. Scorcese quoted in Eyman , Empire of Dreams, 477–478.

  40. 40.

    Birchard, DeMille’s Hollywood, 304.

  41. 41.

    Louvish, A Life in Art, 417. Heston quoted in Barra, “The Incredible Shrinking Epic” American Film 14, 5 (March 1989), 42.

  42. 42.

    For “circus staged,” see BYU, Box 633, Folder 7. For vignette treatment, see BYU, Box 653, Folder 6. For breezes and bathrobes, see BYU, Box 652, Folder 2.

  43. 43.

    DeMille’s observations of performers and audience in BYU, Box 633, Folder 8; Box 652, Folder 2; Box 653, Folder 6. DeMille first agreed to the title on October 31, 1949, in BYU, Box 634, Folder 5.

  44. 44.

    Koury, Yes Mr. DeMille, 36. For DeMille’s experiences on location and reaction to crowds, see BYU, Box 633, Folder 9; BYU, Box 646, Folder 3; Box 653, Folder 6. For DeMille on the extras, see Hayne , Autobiography, 415, 426.

  45. 45.

    While the numbers are somewhat arbitrary, the distinction between the three densities and “crowd effect” in any particular shot is quite noticeable.

  46. 46.

    As noted in Chap. 3, this relationship between human action and faith in God’s intervention in current events was an important doctrinal rift between many Christians in the 1920s.

  47. 47.

    DeMille was never happy with the effects achieved with the pillar of fire. Pressured by Paramount’s strict release schedule, the production was forced to use skillful but artificial-looking cel animations for several critical dramatic moments, such as the pillar of fire, God’s writing of the Commandments, and when Moses turns his staff into a snake. The different approaches taken for the pillar and subsequent parting of the Red Sea are noticeable.

  48. 48.

    For the extensive research conducted by DeMille’s production staff, see Noerdlinger, Moses and Egypt: The Documentation to the Motion Picture The Ten Commandments (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, 1956).

  49. 49.

    Arthur quoted in BYU, Box 468, Folder 7. DeMille quoted in Birchard , DeMille’s Hollywood, 363. For Hope , see BYU, Box 498 Folder 5. For “sentimental mood,” see BYU, Box 644, Folder 5.

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  1. Department of History, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX, USA

    David Blanke

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Blanke, D. (2018). Behold Their Mighty Hands. In: Cecil B. DeMille, Classical Hollywood, and Modern American Mass Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76986-8_7

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