Cecil B. DeMille in the trailer for 1952's "The Greatest Show on Earth" Few Hollywood filmmakers have fit the cliché of a "Hollywood director" as well as Cecil B. DeMille. He was egotistical, a tyrant on the set, he oversaw even the smallest details of every scene -- and he even wore riding pants and boots and used a megaphone while working. But, then, few Hollywood filmmakers were as successful and popular as DeMille. From the mid 1910s to the late 1950s, De Mille turned out hit after hit by combining comedy, drama, overacting, sex, and the Bible into a style that the public couldn't get enough of. Born on August 12, 1881, "C.B." was working by the age of 19 for legendary Broadway producer Charles Frohman as an actor, writer, and director. In 1913, film producer Jesse Lasky hired DeMille to direct a feature version of the stage play, "The Squaw Man." Since Lasky's studios in New York City weren't really suited for filming a Western, it was decided to take the production on location. Originally, the film was intended to film in Arizona, but bad weather forced the company to keep moving west, until they ended up in Hollywood, California (specifically around what is now the corner of Selma and Vine). Over the next fifteen years, DeMille turned out more than 60 feature films, ranging from sex comedies to westerns to Biblical epics. In the late '20s, his fortunes dipped a bit, but with a series of pictures that were filled with the bizarre -- Exploding dirigibles! Baths in asses’ milk! Lesbian orgies! -- he made it back to the top. The wilder it got, the more moviegoers ate it up, and DeMille never looked back. His fame increased. He hosted a weekly radio program; he appeared in the trailers for his films as a guarantee of their quality; he even showed up in other directors' pictures as the model of what a Hollywood director looked like. Although his pictures were always box office hits ("The Ten Commandments" alone made the 2009 equivalent of more than $600,000,000), they won only one Oscar for Best Picture (1952's "The Greatest Show on Earth.") For all his success, DeMille's legacy (other than filming the first feature picture in Hollywood) may lie in three things he didn't have much to do with: The first is the annual television airings of "The Ten Commandments." Each year, new viewers are exposed to the hammy acting of Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, and Edward G, Robinson in a film that somehow combines piousness and ballyhoo. The second is an anecdote from the filming of that same picture. While probably apocryphal, the story of DeMille and a cameraman gave us the expression, "Ready when you are, C.B." The last is from Billy Wilder's film, "Sunset Boulevard." Wilder cast DeMille as himself in this story of the deluded silent-film star Norma Desmond, played by Gloria Swanson (who had herself starred in many of DeMille's biggest hits of the '10s and '20s). Norma, who has just murdered her lover, retreats into a world of past glory, calling to her former mentor, "All right, Mr. DeMille; I'm ready for my close-up." Suggested Sites... Cecil B DeMille.com - dedicated to the work, life, and legacy of the director. Classic Movie Favorites: Cecil B. DeMille - all kinds of epic information about the director. Greenbriar Picture Shows: Pre-Code DeMille on DVD - it's not dirty; it's morally uplifting! MySpace: Cecil B. DeMille - he's got a MySpace page!? Who knew? DeMille's Lost City - in 1923, DeMille filmed a silent version of "The Ten Commandments," and left the set as a ruin to confuse archaeologists.

Directory categories: Cecil B. DeMille, The Ten Commandments, Movie Directors, Film History, Hollywood

Archived under: 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 19th Century, Biographies, Birthdays, Broadway, California, Celebrities, Directors, Entertainment, Filmmaking, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Men, Movie History, Movies, Silent Movies

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Cover of the code One of the fascinating things about watching old movies -- and we mean, really old movies from the first third of the twentieth century, is the "throw-anything-against-the-wall" feeling that the creators are making up a whole new art form as they go along. There's an impression that the earliest features were silly comedies featuring people who moved jerkily at high speeds. But as early as the 1910s, directors like Lois Weber were making films about such controversial topics as capital punishment, drug addiction, and abortion. Such strong subjects were accompanied by strong language, but until the movies learned to talk, intertitles were able to shield the more sensitive members of the audience (or at least, those who couldn't read lips) from that language. When technology finally allowed patrons to hear as well as see actors, moviemakers were faced with tough choices; how to maintain the grittiness and realism audiences had come to expect without making the dialogue so raw that films would be censored by regional film boards or condemned by the powerful Legion of Decency. (This was an era when the epithet "son of a bitch" caused an uproar when it was used in the 1928 play "The Front Page.") The solution was to tone down most of the language while keeping the themes the same. Movies like "Baby Face" or "Employees' Entrance" (featuring the hard-boiled Barbara Stanwyck and the delightfully sleazy Warren William sleeping their way to the top) were as popular as they were scandalous. But even that taming was too much, and on March 31, 1930, Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America released a codified rulebook designed to ensure that movie producers self-censored their films. That way, not only would filmgoers of all ages be spared anything the least bit unsavory, but it ensured that "American" values would be promoted and upheld. So strong was the Hays Code that, in 1939, when David O. Selznick wanted to keep Rhett Butler’s final line in "Gone With the Wind" intact, he had to pay a $5,000 fine for using the word "damn." For the next 35 years, the Code remained virtually inviolate. One of the first directors to subvert it was Otto Preminger, who fought to use such verboten words as "virgin and "rape" in his films, making them strictly "adults only" fare. As society changed in the 1960s, the code became unenforceable. Keeping mature themes and language out of the movies became increasingly absurd, so the Code was abandoned in favor of the rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17) we know today. While it's now possible to go to the movies and see and hear virtually anything, there’s still a thrill in watching a pre-code movie like "Night Nurse" and finding out that our grandparents were a lot more interesting than we thought. Suggested Sites... You Tube: Doin' the Prodcution Code - the Hays Code, set to tap-dance rhythm. Wikipedia: List of Films Condemned by the Legion of Decency - from 1933 to 1980. Put them on your "must-see" list. DVDs of Early Films Show Nothing Was Taboo - NPR audio report on Pre-Code movies. Sinner's Holiday - "an ode to Pre-Code." Censor's Notes for "Baby Face" - the Hays Office contacts Warner Bros. about "objectionable material."

Directory categories: Movie History, Censorship, Movies, Barbara Stanwyck

Archived under: 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Actors, American History, Anniversaries, Censorship, Entertainment, Filmmaking, History, Hollywood, Movie History, Movies, Nostalgia, Sex and Sexuality, Silent Movies, Society and Culture, Vintage

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Poster for King Kong It probably wasn’t very long after the Lumière Brothers invented the motion-picture camera that someone realized if you stopped the camera, you could make objects appear or disappear on screen in the blink of an eye. Certainly pioneering filmmaker Georges Méliès realized that by 1899 when he made his film "The Conjuror." But the year before Méliès made his film, American J. Stuart Blackton figured out if you just repositioned things, instead of moving them on- and off-camera, you could make inanimate objects seem to move on their own. While Blackton became known as the "Father of American Animation," most of his films were trifles and filled with gimmicks that failed to move the plot forward. As pioneering as his techniques were, decades passed before they truly came to fruition in the work of Willis O’Brien, whose birthday we note today. O'Brien was originally a sculptor, but in the 1910s was hired by Thomas Edison to create stop-motion short films -- most of which featured dinosaurs. O'Brien began using clay for his creations, but he soon developed models that had articulated metal skeletons covered with plastic or rabbit fur. In 1925, he achieved new heights with his work in the film "The Lost World," which featured a brontosaurus running amok through London. But that film was only a warm-up for O'Brien's masterpiece, "King Kong" (which, coincidentally, also opened on this day in 1933). Working on his largest scale ever, O'Brien was able to actually shape Kong's performance, making the giant ape the most sympathetic character in the film -- never mind that his pathos was combined with bouts of ingesting and crushing people. O'Brien continued animating until his death in 1962, revisiting giant apes in "Son of Kong" and "Mighty Joe Young," but he never again scaleed the heights he reached in 1933. O'Brien's work may seem a little primitive to modern eyes, but without it, we’d have no Wallace and Gromit, Gumby, or even Davey and Goliath. Many of today’s CGI animators got their inspiration from watching the original "King Kong." So, on this most animated of days, let's raise a toast -- a banana daiquiri, say -- to the man who created the "Eighth Wonder of the World." Suggested Sites... Willis O'Brien - biography with information about "King Kong" and other animation work. Animate Clay.com - follow in O'Brien's footsteps by creating your own stop-motion movies. A Brief History of Stop-Motion Animation - from Blackton to "Coraline." King Kong: The Eighth Wonder of the World - information on the original and 2005 films, posters, fan art, and special effects. Willis O'Brien: Stop-Motion Pioneer - video gallery of some of early work.

Directory categories: King Kong (1933), Stop-Motion Animators, Animation, Movies, Wallace and Gromit

Archived under: 1910s, 1930s, Animation, Anniversaries, Apes, Biographies, Birthdays, Coincidence, Dinosaurs, Entertainment, Filmmaking, Monsters and Creatures, Movie History, Movies, Silent Movies, Technology

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Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle In an era that worshipped silent comedy and movie stars, Roscoe Arbuckle may have been the biggest star of all -- in every sense. Better known by the name of the character (“Fatty”) he played on screen, Arbuckle went from unknown bit player in 1909 to a 1914 contract offer of $1,000 a day, 25% of all profits, and complete artistic control of his films. By 1921, he was at the height of his career, earning a million dollars a year and working on three features simultaneously. It all came crashing down, though, on a September afternoon in San Francisco. Behind the closed doors of his suite at the St. Francis Hotel, the popular star allegedly raped and brutalized a young actress by the name of Virginia Rappe. When Rappe later died of peritonitis, Arbuckle was arrested on charges of manslaughter and brought to trial. On December 4, 1921 the jury deliberating his case deadlocked on a decision and a mistrial was declared, setting the stage for a long, tormenting process of retrials. Immediately after the event the newspapers went wild with sensationalized stories. One popular story claimed that Arbuckle had abused Rappe with a Coke bottle. In the frenzy of these half-truths and lies, the reality was obscured. Regardless of evidence that overwhelmingly supported Arbuckle's version of events, the newspapers of the day whipped up a frenzy of antagonism toward him. The second trial ended with the jury deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal. A third trial was ordered, and finally, the jury acquitted him of all charges in a six-minute deliberation, five minutes of which went into producing a statement of apology for the prosecutions. Though Arbuckle had been exonerated in the courtroom, public sentiment had long since turned against him. He was blacklisted in Hollywood, and for the next decade couldn't find adequate work. Though several Hollywood notables rallied behind him, most notably his close friend Buster Keaton (to whom he had given his start), Arbuckle's career was doomed. Eventually, he was able to find directing work (under the puckish pseudonym “Will B. Goode”), and as the years passed, the public’s attitude toward him changed. He was even able to land acting roles before his death in 1933. But as fate (and irony) would have it, he died in a hotel room after a night of celebrating a newly-acquired acting contract with Warner Brothers. Suggested Sites... Arbucklemania - all about Roscoe Arbuckle. Crime Library: Fatty Arbuckle and the Death of Virginia Rappe - TruTV's account of the crime. Silents Are Golden - profiles, photos, and essays on silent film. 10 Scandalous Stars of the Silent Screen - famous scandals of the Silent Era. Wikipedia: Roscoe Arbuckle - the rise and fall and rise of Roscoe.

Directory categories: Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle, Silent Movies, Silent Movie Actors and Directors, Crime News and Media, Buster Keaton

Archived under: 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, Actors, American History, Anniversaries, Celebrities, Comedians, Crime, Directors, Entertainment, Hollywood, Law, Legal Cases, Los Angeles, Movie History, Movies, Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle, San Francisco, Scandals, Silent Movies, Tabloids

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Citizen Kane It's Terrific! In Black and White!!! Ted Turner doesn't like black and white movies. Drunk on technology that allowed computers to "improve" old films by troweling layers of color over them, he threatened to colorize "Citizen Kane" -- generally considered the greatest movie ever made, largely due to Gregg Toland's superb black and white cinematography. Welles' response? "Keep Ted Turner and his damned Crayolas away from my movie." Fortunately, Welles' 1941 contract prevented Turner from defacing "Kane," but the search for color is as old as movies themselves. Pioneer filmmakers applied watercolors directly onto film to provide viewers with some realism, and most silent features used tinting and toning (blue for night scenes, amber for outdoors) to provide atmosphere. In 1908, George Smith's Kinemacolor system gave moviegoers a taste of the real world, and in 1917, Herbert Kalmus devised the Technicolor system, which photographed red and green light onto two strips of film running through a camera. Unfortunately, the resulting images were orangey-pink or greenish-blue. The real breakthrough came in 1932, when Kalmus developed a three-strip process that gave a depth and richness to color film that hadn't been seen before. That was the status quo for the next 50 years, as moviemakers alternated between color and black and white as subject matter (and budgets) dictated. In the '80s, though, technology enabled film owners to go through their libraries and spruce up movies that younger viewers -- not used to black and white -- found unwatchable. In most cases, the results were awful, as a limited color palate washed out details and replaced crisp images with a muddy mess. The public was unimpressed, and the fad was soon over. In recent years, though, technology has improved, and while the results may be brighter, they still leave a lot to be desired. As for ourselves, while we like our movies in color, the silvery images captured by such artists as Toland, Arthur C. Miller, and William Daniels are priceless treasures that shouldn't be mucked with. Suggested Sites... Film Colorization - a history of film desecration. Wikipedia: Technicolor - the glories of three-strip dye-transfer movies. Turner Classic Movies - ironically enough, the place to see movies that are uncut and unaltered. "Casablanca" Gets Colorized, But Don't Play It Again - Roger Ebert takes on Ted Turner.

Directory categories: Movies, Cinematography, Movie History, Citizen Kane, Ted Turner

Archived under: Black and White, Citizen Kane, Colorization, Entertainment, Film Production, Filmmaking, Flops, Movies, Orson Welles, Silent Movies, Technology, Ted Turner

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