Cecil B. DeMille

ActorProducerDirectorExecutive ProducerWriter

Cecil Blount DeMille was a founder of the Hollywood motion-picture industry, one of the most commercially successful producer-directors of his time, and one of the most influential filmmakers in history. Between 1914 and 1956, he made seventy feature films; all but seven were profitable. Cecil B. DeMille is synonymous with religious epics: The King of Kings, Samson and Delilah, and The Ten Commandments (1956). He blended spectacle, sex, and spellbinding narrative to convey a message of faith. It was DeMille who created the image of the omnipotent director, megaphone in hand, wearing boots and a visored cap. DeMille gave Hollywood numerous stars: Wallace Reid, Gloria Swanson, William (“Hopalong Cassidy”) Boyd, Claudette Colbert, Robert Preston, Jean Arthur, and Charlton Heston. DeMille created the posts of studio story editor, art director, and concept artist. He was one of the first to use theatrical lighting on a movie set. In the late 1920s, when Hollywood converted to sound films, DeMille defied the sound experts, liberating the camera from a confining booth, and implementing the microphone boom. DeMille’s authority extended beyond the confines of his studio. He was a power in aviation, banking, politics, and real estate. In the 1930s, his fame as a filmmaker was surpassed by his fame as a radio star. He was a founder of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an institution from which he eventually won two awards. In 1953 his film The Greatest Show on Earth won the Award for Best Picture of 1952; and he was presented with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. DeMille’s influence on world culture is incalculable, but there are estimates and milestones. His biography of Jesus Christ, The King of Kings, was a silent film, but because of a unique distribution arrangement, it was eventually seen by 800 million viewers. Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Ten Commandments (1956) are still listed with the top ten all-time box-office champions. They continue to generate revenue and provoke thought.

12-08-1881

Birthday

Leo

Zodiac Sign

Genres

Total Films

Also known as (male)

Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA

Place of Birth

12-08-1881

Birthday

Leo

Zodiac Sign

Genres

Total Films

Also Known As (male)

Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA

Place of Birth

Popular works

Media

Creative career

actor

40 Works

producer

61 Works

director

177 Works

writer

21 Works

other

19 Works

Indiana Jones: The Search for the Lost Golden Age

Hawaii, May 1977. After the success of Star Wars, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg meet to find a new project to work on together, the former as producer, the latter as director. The story of how the charismatic archaeologist Indiana Jones was born and how his first adventure, released in 1981, triumphed at box offices around the world.

7.8

Year:

2021

Yul Brynner, the Magnificent

The incredible story of the mythical Russian-American actor and filmmaker Yul Brynner (1920-85), the most exotic sex-symbol since Rudolph Valentino; the story of the atypical destiny of an international nomad: from the Parisian cabarets to the stages of Broadway and the Hollywood studios. The rise to fame of a multidisciplinary genius who became a king of the screen.

7.5

Year:

2020

Patterns of Evidence: The Red Sea Miracle II

THE RED SEA MIRACLE 2 continues to raise big questions about biblical miracles. How could thousands of feet of water be parted at the Red Sea? Or was the sea merely parted by the act of wind in nature, through a shallow Egyptian lake? Mahoney investigates these locations to see if any have a pattern of evidence matching the Bible. People of faith will be inspired and skeptics will have much to think about as Mahoney reveals two decades of documentary research including if divers found the remains of Pharaoh's army on the seafloor. This cinematic journey leads him to inquire... 'Do miracles still happen today?'

8.0

Year:

2020

Patterns of Evidence: The Red Sea Miracle

In this investigation, filmmaker Timothy P. Mahoney examines the journey to the crossing location, looking at two competing views of the Red Sea Miracle. One he calls the “Egyptian Approach,” which looks near Egypt. The other he calls the “Hebrew Approach,” which looks far from Egypt to the Gulf of Aqaba where divers have been searching for the remains of Pharaoh’s army on the seafloor. The investigation raises giant questions about the real location for the crossing site and its implications on your view of God. The answers to these questions point to one of two very different realities.

10.0

Year:

2020

Hail Satan?

The story of The Satanic Temple, a controversial movement that combines religion and activism with the apparent purpose of questioning the basic foundations of US society.

7.0

Year:

2019

Sword-and-Sandal: The Story of the Period Epic

The history of the peplum genre, known as sword-and-sandal cinema, set in Antiquity, from the silent film era to the present day.

7.0

Year:

2019

The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille

Filmmaker Peter Brosnan digs up the set of the 1923 film 'The Ten Commandments', long buried in the sands of California's Central Coast.

5.2

Year:

2016

And the Oscar Goes To...

The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy itself, which began in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM, led other prominent members of the industry in forming this professional honorary organization. Two years later the Academy began bestowing awards, which were nicknamed "Oscar," and quickly came to represent the pinnacle of cinematic achievement.

7.0

Year:

2014

Why Be Good?: Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema

Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.

4.9

Year:

2007

Going Hollywood: The '30s

Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War.

10.0

Year:

1984

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.

6.5

Year:

1983

Hooray for Hollywood

A celebration of Hollywood in the 1930s, featuring a compilation of clips from features and newsreels of the era.

0.0

Year:

1976

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

5.7

Year:

1975

The Buster Keaton Story

An inaccurate retelling of the life of silent filmmaker and comedian Buster Keaton.

4.9

Year:

1957

The Ten Commandments

Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.

7.8

Year:

1956

Son of Paleface

Peter Potter Jr. returns to claim his father's gold, which is nowhere to be found.

6.3

Year:

1952

The Greatest Show on Earth

To ensure a full profitable season, circus manager Brad Braden engages The Great Sebastian, though this moves his girlfriend Holly from her hard-won center trapeze spot. Holly and Sebastian begin a dangerous one-upmanship duel in the ring, while he pursues her on the ground.

6.3

Year:

1952

The Fallbrook Story

“The Fallbrook Story,” is a 20-minute film of Cold War-era uneasiness in which director Frank Capra rails against what he calls the evils of Big Bureaucracy. In 1951, Capra lived in Fallbrook, California on his 1,000-acre Red Mountain Ranch farm filled with olive groves. The federal government, which had purchased the old Rancho Santa Margarita land in 1941 to build Camp Pendleton, was concerned that ranchers upstream would take or pollute the Santa Margarita River, which ran through Camp Pendleton. Capra’s film documents how Fallbrook residents fought back against the federal government.

0.0

Year:

1952

Sunset Boulevard

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

8.3

Year:

1950

Samson and Delilah

When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret.

6.5

Year:

1949

Unconquered

England, 1763. After being convicted of a crime, the young and beautiful Abigail Hale agrees, to escape the gallows, to serve fourteen years as a slave in the colony of Virginia, whose inhabitants begin to hear and fear the sinister song of the threatening drums of war that resound in the wild Ohio valley.

6.2

Year:

1947

Variety Girl

Dozens of star and character-actor cameos and a message about the Variety Club (a show-business charity) are woven into a framework about two hopeful young ladies who come to Hollywood, exchange identities, and cause comic confusion (with slapstick interludes) throughout the Paramount studio.

6.1

Year:

1947

Jens Mons in America

Jens Månsson has big financial problems and realizes that he probably has to leave his dear Skåne farm Gåsabo. But suddenly, he inherits a fortune from his brother John in America.

3.0

Year:

1947

Screen Snapshots (Series 25, No. 1): 25th Anniversary

A look back at 25 years of Columbia's series of newsreels chronicling the film industry and the lives of Hollywood stars. Clips from earlier films in the series are featured, along with a montage of film greats who have passed away in the intervening years.

0.0

Year:

1945

The Story of Dr. Wassell

As the Japanese sweep through the East Indies during World War II, Dr. Wassell is determined to escape from Java with some crewmen of the cruiser Marblehead. Based on a true story of how Dr. Wassell saved a dozen or so wounded sailors who were left behind when able bodied men were evacuated to Australia.

6.3

Year:

1944

Reap the Wild Wind

The Florida Keys in 1840, where the implacable hurricanes of the Caribbean scream, where the salvagers of Key West, like the intrepid and beautiful Loxi Claiborne and her crew, reap, aboard frail schooners, the harvest of the wild wind, facing the shark teeth of the reefs to rescue the sailors and the cargo from the shipwrecks caused by the scavengers of the sea.

6.4

Year:

1942

Star Spangled Rhythm

Pop, a security guard at Paramount has told his son that he's the head of the studio. When his son arrives in Hollywood on shore leave with his buddies, Pop enlists the aid of the studio's dizzy switchboard operator in pulling off the charade. Things get more complicated when Pop agrees to put together a show for the Navy starring Paramount's top contract players.

5.9

Year:

1942

Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)

The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.

0.0

Year:

1942

North West Mounted Police

Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him) travels to Canada in the 1880s in search of Jacques Corbeau, who is wanted for murder. He wanders into the midst of the Riel Rebellion, in which Métis (people of French and Native heritage) and Natives want a separate nation. Dusty falls for nurse April Logan, who is also loved by Mountie Jim Brett. April's brother is involved with Courbeau's daughter Louvette, which leads to trouble during the battles between the rebels and the Mounties. Through it all Dusty is determined to bring Corbeau back to Texas (and April, too, if he can manage it.)

6.3

Year:

1940

The Movies March On

A "March of Time" presentation of the evolution of movies compiled primarily from film clips of silent movies through the early sound pictures to the present (1939) date. Industry executives such as Jack and Harry Warner, Walt Disney, Cecil B. DeMille, et al are seen taking bows in the live (non-archive) footage.

3.5

Year:

1939

Hollywood Extra Girl

A short semi-documentary about a "typical extra girl" on a DeMille film.

6.0

Year:

1935

The Hollywood You Never See

The making of Cleopatra (1934), showing pre-production, DeMille directing a scene, and the addition of music to the soundtrack.

0.0

Year:

1934

Hollywood on Parade No. B-5

Comedian Lloyd Hamilton escorts a group of beauty contest winners to various Hollywood night spots.

0.0

Year:

1933

Madam Satan

A socialite masquerades as a notorious femme fatale to win back her straying husband during a costume party aboard a doomed dirigible.

5.9

Year:

1930

Estrellados

A matinée idol and a bumbling manager fight for the love of a would-be starlet. Estrellados is the Spanish version of Free and Easy (1930) with Hispanic/Spanish-speaking actors.

0.0

Year:

1930

Free and Easy

Gopher City Kansas hosts a beauty contest. The winner, Elvira Plunkett, and her mother go to Hollywood. The Chamber of Commerce also provides Elvira with an agent, Gopher City's own Elmer J. Butz. Elmer likes Elvira and the shy Elvira likes him, but Mrs. Plunkett, a formidable woman, has little use for hapless Elmer. On the train west, they meet movie star Larry Mitchell, who takes a shine to Elvira and helps her meet MGM directors once they get to Tinsel Town. Elmer, meanwhile, wants to help Elvira with her career and he also wants to be her man. Movie stardom does come to the Gopher City entourage, but to whom is a surprise. And who will win the lovely Elvira's hand?

6.1

Year:

1930

The Circus: Premiere

Footage from the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film 'The Circus'.

5.4

Year:

1928

Life in Hollywood No. 1

Part of a 7-part series exploring all aspects of Hollywood.

0.0

Year:

1927

Hollywood

Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...

7.0

Year:

1923

A Trip to Paramountown

Documentary short film depicting the filmmaking activity at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood, featuring dozens of stars captured candidly and at work.

6.0

Year:

1922