Silver Screenings

A few weeks ago, we visited an antique shop in the middle of Nowhere and, among low-tech housewares and sewing machines, we found a biography of classic Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille: Yes, Mr. DeMille by Phil Koury.

DeMille was a film director for an astonishing 46 years. He directed over 80 movies, including The Squaw Man (1914), The Ten Commandments (1923 & 1956), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Union Pacific (1939), and many acclaimed silent films.

The movies were Spectacles, his characters faced momentous challenges, and his actors were pushed beyond the comfort zone vis-à-vis stuntwork or dangerous animals.

Yes, Mr. DeMille is un-put-downable. Koury, who worked for the director as an executive assistant for seven years, didn’t, it appears, miss a Thing. One wonders if Koury kept a special notepad in his desk for DeMille Observations.

The book, published shortly after DeMille’s death in 1959, is a clear-eyed appraisal of DeMille as boss and motion picture artist.

It is not, thankfully, a dissection of DeMille’s personal life. Rather, it lets us see DeMille’s approach to film projects and his treatment of his staff.

Koury is a witty, engaging writer who juggles cynicism of the industry with a genuine respect for DeMille’s talent.

Some of his best lines are reserved for Hollywood’s love of money: “[T]he most nutritional of all Hollywood vitamins – big returns at the boxoffice.”¹

Yet, it seems DeMille himself never approached a project without first thinking of the returns. For example, Koury documents brainstorming sessions with writers, the director firing pointed questions:

“What are the things that make an audience interested in the scene?” he asked. “What are the reactions of the people? … What’s the act – the feature? What’s going on underneath?”²

DeMille was tough on everyone who worked for him, especially writers. For The Greatest Show on Earth, seven writers were brought on board at different times – to replace others who had quit, to polish what previous writers had written, or to start a new script altogether.

Koury provides lots of colourful anecdotes on the day-to-day business of working with DeMille. In one passage, he describes the director having lunch with his staff in the Paramount café.

“Immediately upon the boss’s taking his place he was served a generous bowl of chips, which he nibbled on during the half-hour or more prior to our being served… The crunch, crunch, accompanied by digs, often not sly, at the hungry aides for work done or left undone, created a barrier to the healthy flow of the staff’s gastric juices…”

Yes, Mr. DeMille, p. 250

Observations like these make you feel you’ve met DeMille yourself. Indeed, this book is a shrewd character study.

In describing DeMille’s approach to movie promotion, censorship, and unions, we learn how these things worked in Classic Hollywood.

We also learn he thrived on overcoming obstacles, such as large crowd scenes.

“Sharing with him the tensions of one crisis after another, we felt it was part of Mr. DeMille’s nature to be in a state of constant motion,” writes Koury. “He kept up a staggering pace and never seems to be happier than when chaffing under some mighty dilemma.”³

Koury was under no illusions about DeMille’s productions (“His productions were big, colorful, often gaudy.”⁴), but never, in the book, does he refer to his boss as “Cecil.” With Koury, it’s always “Mr. DeMille.”

Although DeMille had his faults, such as, in the 1950s, labeling people a communist if they disagreed with him, Koury doesn’t lose his sense of humour or affection for the man.

He reminds us DeMille employed women in technical roles during the late 1920s when it Wasn’t Done. This was the period of “the nine women,” which included screenwriter Jeanie Macpherson, film editor Anne Bauchens, and technical advisor Berenice Mosk.

He was often at odds with the film biz. As Koury notes: “He learned to live without the acclaim of his colleagues, always aware that Hollywood disapproved of his firebrand tactics…and particularly his irritating habit of deriving enormous profit from subjects that were supposed to spell financial ruin.”⁵

Yet, Koury also portrays a warm and personable DeMille, as in their first meeting in 1946.

“There was nothing epic in his manner,” writes Koury. “His voice did not sound like thunder from Mount Olympus. He stood at the door to his office, a foot propping it open, with a warm, interested, almost shy smile.”⁶

Are you a fan of Cecil B. DeMille? If so, which of his films appeal to you?

Notes

Koury, Phil (1959) Yes, Mr. DeMille: A Humorous and Candid Appraisal of an Extraordinary Showman. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
¹Ibid., p. 318.
²Ibid., p. 254.
³Ibid., p. 291.
⁴Ibid., p. 178.
⁵Ibid., p. 316.
⁶Ibid., p. 11.