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228 SUCCESS SENDS UP LAND PRICES
failed, there was never-ending interference with the development of our negative.
" Then came the most terrible discovery of all. When we screened the completed picture for the first time, it leapt about all over the place. The actors' heads appeared at the foot of the screen and the feet at the top. Scenes appeared to shut up like concertinas, ranges of mountains rolled like breakers on a beach, and the hero occasionally appeared in two places at once." He was certain he was ruined. In desperation he took it to a friend, Ira M. Lowry, who was an expert. He shook his head gravely over it, though inwardly laughing at De Mille. He knew what the other had done.
Using bootleg cameras, no two of wThich were alike, in an effort to avoid further trouble with the Patent Company, each machine had registered the sprocket holes, which perforate both margins of the film to guide it through the projector when it is shown, at differing widths apart. When all the scenes were collated and cemented together they " changed gear ", so to speak, every few seconds on the screen. Lowry merely cut the sprocket holes off, five thousand feet in length, and glued on a new set. Then it ran smoothly.
De Mille was overjoyed and made his inevitable offer of an interest in the company as a reward — a thousand shares. Lowry declined. He asked nothing for his one night's work. Thus, he too, missed the chance of becoming a millionaire.
The first professional showing of the film netted forty dollars. Soon, however, its fame spread. It played in thousands of electric theatres and earned just over a quarter of a million dollars.
The news spread. Hollywood was the place to make pictures. Almost overnight it became a boom town, the mecca of all movie makers. The price of land soared from less than two dollars an acre charged when De Mille arrived, to several thousands for coveted sites. Studios sprang up on every hand, while the residents fenced in their bungalows in disgust. The population increased from five thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand in a few months. But De Mille still led the field. He took up the production of vastly ornate films, replete with dazzling feminine gowns.
Religious themes became irresistible. Defying the taboos, he filmed The Ten Commandments, then depicted Christ in King of Kings.
Critics denounced him, but the public, then as now, loved him. With The Crusades and Cleopatra, De Mille actually taught them a little historv.