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Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood

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Though he hasn't made a movie since the 1950s, CB DeMille is still a name that says "Hollywood" to anyone who hears it. But, aside from The Ten Commandments, it's possible that most people today don't know who he was or what he did. Robert Birchard's book, written in a blithe, easy-going style -- as if you're talking to him -- reminds us who CB was and how important he was to the history of film. Using original sources as much as possible (rather than second and third hand accounts) Mr. Birchard has traced DeMille's career through his films, in the process seeing as many as are still available (sadly not all are). In doing so, he manages to trace much of DeMille's life and the life and history of Hollywood as it grows and learns to use new and better technology to tell its stories. This book is both easy to read, fun to read, and even (gasp!) informative! But don't let stop you from buying and enjoying it!

Before David Lean, before Michael Curtiz, and waaay before Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg, there was Cecil B. DeMille, the creator of gargantuan epics from Hollywood's Golden Age. C.B. started making movies the year that D.W. Griffith shot "The Birth of a Nation" and died when Steven Spielberg was a kid in Arizona, shooting home movies. In between, he wrote, produced, directed and acted in close to a hundred films

Today, of course, DeMille is remembered for "The Ten Commandments" and "The Greatest Show on Earth," but Demille was far more than that. The Great Man directed westerns and bedroom comedies, time travel adventures (in the silent days, no less), and even a musical.

Remarkably, most of Cecil B. DeMille's five decades of film work survive, and Robert Birchard has seen all fifty years worth, and written about each film in a lucid, graceful prose; Birchard has delivered a feast of information for anyone who's interested in the history of Hollywood. (Did you know that Charlton Heston, the star of "The Ten Commandments," was making less than Yul Brynner? Did you know that during the filming of C.B.'s FIRST "Ten Commandments" (a gargantuan hit in 1923) that the slaves who were supposedly sweltering in the Egyptian desert were actually extras on the central California coast FREEZING in chilly Spring weather, and who bundled themselves into coats as soon as the director yelled "Cut"? Mr. Birchard lets us in on the behind-the-scenes action on each of C.B's films (each movie has its own individual chapter), as well as when the films were shot, when they were released, what they cost and what they made at the box office.

This is a book for anyone who wants to know where American films have been...and how we got to where we are today.