Cecil B. DeMille, Classical Hollywood, and Modern American Mass Culture

336 Pages·2018·4.817 MB·English

by  David Blanke

CECIL B. DEMILLE,
CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD,
AND MODERN AMERICAN
MASS CULTURE
1910–1960
DAVID BLANKE
Cecil B. DeMille, Classical Hollywood, and Modern
American Mass Culture
David Blanke
Cecil B. DeMille,
Classical Hollywood,
and Modern American
Mass Culture
1910–1960
David Blanke
Department of History
Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi, TX, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-76985-1 ISBN 978-3-319-76986-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76986-8
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In loving memory of Gloria Alice Blanke and Harriet Marie Moster
A
cknowledgments
Institutional support from Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, the
College of Liberal Arts, and the Jeff and Mary Bell Library was essential to
completing the research and writing of this project. Kelly Quintanilla,
Mark Hartlaub, Marti Beck, Zava Kuklinski, Jan Geyer, Lisa Louis,
Brenton Day, Denise Landry-Hyde, and Ann Hodges lent their skills and
professional assistance to this process. A very special thanks goes to Mrs.
Margaret Turnbull, who generously created the Joe B. Frantz Endowment
for the History area. Funds allocated while I was the Joe B. Frantz profes-
sor of history were particularly important in the earliest stage of this proj-
ect. I also acknowledge my debt to the research and archival staffs at the
Harold B. Lee Library of Brigham Young University, the Margaret Herrick
Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Library of
Congress, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research of the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the New York Public Library for the
Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, and the Harry
K. Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin.
Numerous friends and professional colleagues gave their time, exper-
tise, encouragement, and a critical eye when it was needed most. In par-
ticular, I thank Lary May, Tino Balio, Dave Steigerwald, Sue Matheson,
Matthew Jones, Joan Ormrod, Teresa Cutler-Broyles, Kristian Petersen,
Candice Roberts, Myles Ethan Lascity, and Ranjit Arab for their contribu-
tions. Comments from participants at conferences hosted by the Film and
History Society, the Reception Studies Society, and the Consumer
Identities and Digital Culture Symposium at St. Johns University added
depth and nuance to many portions of this book. The professionals at
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Palgrave Macmillan, including Shaun Vigil, Glenn Ramirez, Rachel
Taenzler, Tikoji Rao, and Vanipriya Manohar, and their anonymous read-
ers helped me to better understand and communicate my ideas. Finally,
many friends gave me the benefit of their critical reading to the many—
and often quite flawed—early drafts for this book, including Jen Brown,
Pat Carroll, Tim Gilfoyle, Lynn and John Gunn, Tom and Judy Koehler,
Alan Lessoff, Peter Moore, Tom and Susan Murphy, Harold Platt,
Sandrine Sanos, Glenn Tiller, Ceil Venable, Robert Wooster, and the stu-
dents in my graduate and upper-division courses on U.S. Modern Popular
Culture.
As always, my wife Janet and our adult children, Alex and Benjamin,
provided the time, patience, and unqualified love that kept me grounded
over the many years in which this project took shape. The book is dedi-
cated to my late mother, Gloria Alice Blanke, and mother-in-law, Harriet
Marie Moster, both movie-lovers, astute critics, and popcorn connoisseurs
who my family and I miss dearly.
c
ontents
1 L ocating DeMille 1
2 The Brand 45
3 The Wanderer 89
4 A New and Filmable Past 129
5 Greetings from Mr. Hollywood 165
6 Who Is Cecil B. DeMille? 211
7 Behold Their Mighty Hands 253
8 Re-Locating DeMille 305
Index 315
ix
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 2.1 Tori Arakau (Hayakawa) branding his possessions in the
extended opening shot of The Cheat (Jesse L. Lasky Feature
Play Company, 1915) 58
Fig. 2.2 Edith Hardy (Ward), the “Social Butterfly.” The Cheat (Jesse
L. Lasky Feature Play Company, 1915) 59
Fig. 2.3 Edith Hardy (Ward) displays her physical branding. The Cheat
(Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, 1915) 59
Fig. 2.4 Unnamed extras battle in the muddy moat of a French castle.
Joan the Woman (Cardinal Film Corporation, An Artcraft
Picture, Distributed by Paramount Pictures, 1917) 61
Fig. 2.5 Priggish Beth Gordon (Swanson) interrupts her husband,
Robert (Meighan), during his private morning consumption of
the simple pleasures offered by modernity. Why Change Your
Wife? (A Paramount-Artcraft Picture, 1920) 69
Fig. 3.1 Mercea (Landi) refuses to submit to the sexual advances of
either Marcus (Fredric March, standing at right) or Ancaria
(Joyzelle Joyner) before the jeering of the debauched pagans.
The Sign of the Cross (A Cecil B. DeMille Production,
Paramount Publix Corporation, 1932) 103
Fig. 3.2 An unnamed Christian woman is tethered to a pole on the
floor of the coliseum to await her gruesome fate. The Sign of the
Cross (A Cecil B. DeMille Production, Paramount Publix
Corporation, 1932) 106
Fig. 3.3 As Moses receives the Ten Commandments, the former slaves
are encouraged to embrace their basest hedonistic pleasures
and worship the Golden Calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai. The Ten
Commandments (A Famous Players-Lasky Production, A
Paramount Picture, 1923) 107
xii LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 3.4 The suffering of young Stephan (Conlon) is presented through
several emotionally wrenching scenes revealing the boy’s own
doubts and fears. Here his is to be lowered into a hidden torture
chamber where he is forced to disclose the secret location of the
Christians’ meeting. The Sign of the Cross (A Cecil B. DeMille
Production, Paramount Publix Corporation, 1932) 109
Fig. 4.1 DeMille’s non-Western histories offered the opportunity to
direct the same hedonistic gaze at exotic sets, props, and
costumes that he once accentuated in his consumer films.
Cleopatra (A Cecil B. DeMille Production, Paramount
Pictures, 1934) 143
Fig. 4.2 The “business” of villain Sid Campeau (Donlevy) provided
DeMille opportunities to present the psychological motivations
of his characters through visuals without relying on his poor
construction of dialog. Union Pacific (A Cecil B. DeMille
Production, Paramount Pictures, 1939) 149
Fig. 4.3 DeMille’s cinematic histories stressed the populist origins of
American expansion and economic growth, particularly the
perseverance of women in the face of hardship. Union Pacific
(A Cecil B. DeMille Production, Paramount Pictures, 1939) 151
Fig. 4.4 The spectacle of authenticity: a busy river port. The Plainsman
(A Cecil B. DeMille Production, Paramount Pictures, 1937) 153
Fig. 4.5 The spectacle of authenticity: a railroad town. Union Pacific (A
Cecil B. DeMille Production, Paramount Pictures, 1939) 153
Fig. 7.1 DeMille worried over the many technical problems arising from
his location shots, particularly lighting and camera placement.
Here the chiaroscuro effect hints at DeMille’s recognized style
from his earliest films. The Greatest Show on Earth (A Cecil
B. DeMille Production, Paramount Pictures, 1952) 269
Fig.7.2 DeMille understood the perverse consumption of cinematic
spectacle, where the spectator is free to take the pleasures that are
most meaningful to them (shot 1 of 2). The Greatest Show on Earth
(A Cecil B. DeMille Production, Paramount Pictures, 1952) 273
Fig. 7.3 Perverse spectators (shot 2 of 2). The Greatest Show on Earth (A
Cecil B. DeMille Production, Paramount Pictures, 1952) 274
Fig. 7.4 Miriam’s (Taylor) lamentation after the death of a slave. The
indifference of the crowd stands in stark contrast to the ensuing
title card, where God decides to act through Moses. The Ten
Commandments (A Famous Players-Lasky Production, A
Paramount Picture, 1923) 282