Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic

I usually don't care for modern documentaries. Most of those made today are full of cheesy "re-enactments", using bad actors and ridiculous dialogue. But fortunately this one is free of such gaff. And it contains fascinating interviews and real-person accounts from people who knew De Mille, relatives, researchers, and filmmakers of today who were inspired by him.

One of the outstanding features is the glorious music composed especially for this documentary by Leonard Bernstein. Who also scored The Ten Commandments and worked closely with De Mille. The music for this doc (performed by the Prague Orchestra) was Bernstein's last work before he passed on.

While you can get the DVD of the music soundtrack (which I highly recommend), sadly a DVD of this 2-part documentary is unavailable. I have searched everywhere for it, and it seems a DVD was never issued. The only option is watching it on YouTube, where it is available (as of this writing).

This is a two part documentary, each part runs about 60 minutes. The first part covers DeMille's theater and silent era careers while the second part concentrates on the talkies period. boblipton's comment below is presumably about the second part.

Overall, the documentary is quite good and tries to present all sides of the story, but the blacklisting controversy is left a little vague and hard to understand if you are not familiar with the period. But the good news is that there is a lot of archival footage and some of the interviews with the surviving friends and relatives are quite poignant. Movie historians and big name modern directors are also there to provide occasionally wordy commentary.

Curiously, there was nothing in the documentary about DeMille's last project, "The Buccaneer" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051436/), directed by Anthony Quinn, DeMille's son-in-law. I always figured that DeMille was in no shape to direct the movie himself after his heart attack, but the documentary suggests that he was working on other projects before his death.

I first saw this outstanding documentary at Brigham Young University with Kevin Brownlow in attendance and have always felt it to be the best filmed overview of DeMille's career. BYU in Provo, UT houses the massive DeMille collection and supplied a number of things for the documentary. Wanting to teach a mini course on DeMille I went looking for the availability of CECIL B. De MILLE: American EPIC only to learn that it is not available on DVD. Originally it had been made for TCM and that seems to be the only place that it has had screenings. Checking with BYU about its availability I learned that it has not and likely never will be released as a DVD as clearing the rights of material used in the documentary would be far too costly. One of the nicest things about this work is that Elmer Bernstein, who composed the score for THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, not only appears in the documentary but also scored this work -- and the music is outstanding. It sad that monetary requirements keep such a fine documentary out of print.

Not only does this two-part TV documentary aired on TCM cover the life and career of CECIL B. DeMILLE, but it features interview segments with people like Elmer Bernstein, Steven Spielberg, Gloria Swanson, Charlton Heston, Angela Lansbury and Martin Scorsese, all telling interesting anecdotes about the great showman.

Lansbury had high regard for him as a director who "ruled the set with an iron hand" and Spielberg says that DeMille gave people "more than their's money worth" with his epic films. Although he was a taskmaster who strove for what he considered perfection, he was either reviled or loved by his crew, depending upon which person you talk to.

He died in '59 at the age of 77 and narrator Branagh sums it up as "the end of a life of Biblical proportions." I found the section devoted to the political witch hunts of the '50s less than compelling unless you have a complete understanding of that period of history. But when the documentary gets back on the track with his film-making projects, like SAMSON AND DELILAH and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, it's on safe ground again.

A generous amount of clips from his early silent films leads to the sound era and his early struggles to make a foothold in Hollywood. The turning point came in '34 with THE SIGN OF THE CROSS and CLEOPATRA, both of which assured him of an important place in film history a s a director of great spectacles.