Happy Birthday, Cecil B. DeMille! Born today in 1881 as Cecil Blount Demille, this American editor, screenwriter, actor, producer and director is acknowledged as a founding father of the cinema of the United States, as well as the most commercially successful producer-director in film history.
DeMille began his career as a stage actor in 1900. He later moved to writing and directing stage productions, some with American pioneer motion picture producer Jesse Lasky, who was then a vaudeville performer.
DeMille's first film was also the first full-length feature film shot in Hollywood. This was the 1914 American silent black and white Western/drama film 'The Squaw Man'.
Its interracial love story made it the film commercially successful. It first publicized Hollywood as the home of the American film industry.
The continued success of his productions led to the founding of Paramount Pictures with Lasky and Austro-Hungarian-born American film producer Adolph Zukor (one of three founders of Paramount).
DeMille eventually introduced effect lighting, the camera boom, the soundproof camera and color.
He had also obtained the system of bank credit for the studios, made the first million-dollar-plus picture.
This was with first biblical epic, being the 1923 American silent black and white religious drama film 'The Ten Commandments'.
Upon release, it became the master of the epic spectacle. The epic was both a critical and commercial success; it held the Paramount revenue record for twenty-five years.
Five years later, DeMille directed another biblical epic. This was 1927 American silent black and white drama film 'The King of Kings'. It was a biography of Jesus Christ, which gained approval for its sensitivity and reached more than eight hundred million viewers.
In the early 1930s, DeMille's epic 1932 American pre-Code black and white drama film 'The Sign of the Cross' is said to be the first sound film to integrate all aspects of cinematic technique.
Two years later, DeMille directed the epic 1934 American black and white drama film 'Cleopatra'. This was his first film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. This occurred at the 7th Academy Awards in late February 1935.
In the late 1940s, after more than thirty years in film production, DeMille had finally reached a pinnacle in his career. This was in directing the 1949 American Technicolor biblical drama/romance film 'Samson and Delilah'.
Along with biblical and historical narratives, DeMille also directed films oriented toward "neo-naturalism", which tried to portray the laws of man fighting the forces of nature.
In the early 1950s, DeMille received his first Oscar nomination for directing the 1952 American Technicolor drama/melodrama film 'The Greatest Show on Earth'.
One year later, the film won three Golden Globes for Best Cinematography, Best Director - Motion Picture and Best Motion Picture - Drama. This occurred at the 10th Golden Globe Awards in late February 1953.
The following month, the film won two Oscars for Best Story and Best Picture. This occurred at the 25th Academy Awards in late March 1953.
Two years later, DeMille produced, directed and narrated the film of which he is best known. This was the epic 1956 American Technicolor religious drama film 'The Ten Commandments'.
With a runtime of almost four hours, 'The Ten Commandments' was shot in VistVision, with color provided by Technicolor. It was released by Paramount Pictures.
The epic was based on American author J. H Ingraham's 1859 fiction book Pillar of Fire, English minister and author A. E. Southon's 1914 fiction novel On Eagle's Wings, and American writer Dorothy Clarke Wilson's 1949 historical fiction novel Prince of Egypt. The film was also based on the Book of Exodus.
Shot on location in Egypt, Mount Sinai and the Sinai Peninsula, the film was DeMille's last and most successful work.
It is a partial remake of his 1923 film of the same title and features one of the largest sets ever created for a film.
It was released to cinemas in the United States on November 8, 1956, and, at the time of its release, was the most expensive film ever made.
On a budget of $13 million, 'The Ten Commandment's grossed $122.7 million at the box office upon initial release.
The following year, 'The Ten Commandments' was nominated for seven Oscars but only received for Best Picture. This occurred at the 29th Academy Awards in late March 1957.
According to Guinness World Records™, in terms of theatrical exhibition 'The Ten Commandments' is the eighth most successful film of all-time when the box office gross is adjusted for inflation.
As DeMille turned out bigger and better pictures over time, he probably developed more stars than any other individual in the business.
He eventually became a giant in a very real, as well as mythological, sense. He was loved, feared, hated — but always respected.
The DeMille story virtually tells the history of Hollywood movies. His use of spectacle attracted vast audiences and made him a dominant figure in Hollywood for almost five decades.
Between 1914 and 1958, DeMille had made a total of seventy features, both silent and sound films.
His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship.
He had made silent films of every genre: social dramas, comedies, Westerns, farces, morality plays, and historical pageants.
He made stars and cultivated artists. He was successful in aviation, banking, real estate, and radio. He received scores of honors, most notably two Academy Awards. DeMille was the most successful producer-director in the history of film.
For his contribution to radio, DeMille has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This is located on the South side of the 6200 block of Hollywood Boulevard.
For his contribution to cinema, DeMille has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This is located on the West side of the 1700 block of Vine Street.
In 1999, 'The Ten Commandments' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten Top Ten" —the best ten films in ten American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community.
The epic was listed as the tenth best film in the epic genre. Network television has aired the film in prime time during the Passover/Easter season every year since 1973.
DeMille's reputation as a filmmaker has grown over time and his work has influenced many other films and directors.
DeMille is Hollywood’s most enduring legend, remembered, and often reviled, for his grandiose biblical sagas. His films featured extras in the tens of thousands before computer graphics even made the modern epic mundane.
Many judged DeMille a dinosaur both for his movies and his ultraconservative politics.
However, his vision of the Bible as an American frontier narrative recast this old trend in American culture as a cinematic precursor of the “neoconservatism” of our own times.
A founder-pioneer of Hollywood as an industry, DeMille was an unsung auteur, a master of increasingly bizarre narratives.
With grandiose tales infused with adultery and divorce, hedonism and sin, in an age in which modernity, the consumer society, and the pursuit of money made America a battlefield of clashing values and temptations.
His work had been a major reexamination of Hollywood’s most monumental founder.
Savant or sinner, artist or hack, defender of freedom or a hypocritical opportunist who embraced the golden calf of sheer commercialism, DeMille is a pervasive puzzle---a mirror of the larger puzzle and contradictions of America itself.
DeMille had been active from 1899–1958.
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