Tag Archives: cecil b. demille

Jun 29

Aptly named

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In 1952, a 4-year-old boy named Steven thought he was going to the circus. I’m not certain from the stories I’ve heard whether he misunderstood or whether he was playfully misled. He was disappointed — at first — when he was taken to a big building with seats facing a flat white screen, where he watched moving pictures of the circus instead of the real thing. Eventually, though, he realized that the pictures held their own magic.

Turner Classic Movies has been saluting directors during the month of June, and tonight the object of their affection is one Cecil B. DeMille. I have watched a little bit of “The Greatest Show on Earth” tonight, but mostly I’m taping it to enjoy later.

The movie was preceded by a documentary about DeMille during which Steven — who went on to direct his own movies, such as “Jaws,” “E.T.”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Schindler’s List” — told the story of being taken to see the movie by his father. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this was Spielberg’s first movie. It’s a great example of how movies can transport you to another place and time, in this case the vanishing days of the big-top tent circuses.

As always, DeMille has both glamour and spectacle. You have Chuck Heston, with all of the machismo but before some of the pomposity, as the road manager for the show; Jimmy Stewart, lovable as always, in constant clown makeup for reasons I won’t spoil here; Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Dorothy Lamour and a cast of thousands, including real circus performers of the era.

A real treat, for all ages.

Mar 22

Lunch break

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Often, when watching a movie on TV, I’ll look up the movie on IMDb, and that’s what I did tonight during ABC’s annual Easter airing of “The Ten Commandments.”

This story on the trivia page was so funny I had to pass it along:

According to Hollywood lore, while filming the orgy sequence which precedes Moses’ descent from Mount Horab with the Commandments, Cecil B. DeMille was perched on top of a ladder delivering his customarily long-winded directions through a megaphone to the hundreds of extras involved in the scene. After droning on to the extras for several minutes, DeMille was distracted by one young woman who was persistently talking to the woman standing next to her.

DeMille stopped his speech and addressed everyone’s attention to the young woman. “Here,” DeMille said, “We have a young woman whose conversation with her friend is apparently more important than listening to her instructions from her director while we are all engaged in making motion picture history. Perhaps the young woman would care to enlighten us all, and tell us what the devil is so important that it cannot wait until after we make this shot.”

After a moment of awkward silence, the young woman spoke up and boldly confessed, “I was just saying to my friend, ‘I wonder when that bald-headed old fart is gonna call ‘Lunch!’”

DeMille stared at the woman for a moment, paused, then lifted his megaphone and shouted, “Lunch!”

[imdb]0049833[/imdb]