YES, MR.DEMILLE (1959)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

AMONG THE LILLIPUTIANS 23 DeMille's luncheon table, but before he could speak, DeMille uttered one word: "Harps!" "Impossible/' said the man, shaking his head sadly. The next day it was the same. "He doesn't like harps/' DeMille told us, when the composer had gone. "I like harps. He says he can't do the scene with harps only. I say he can do the scene with harps only, and what is more he will do the scene with harps." For weeks the composer worked with a group of harpists, reported frequently to the boss that everything was going badly, that he feared the results would not please him. The boss re- treated not an inch, voiced his confidence that it would be a fine scene and the harp music would be lovely, probably the best in the picture. Two months later DeMille sat with the musician as the harp music was dubbed into the tent scene. De Mille was right; the music was lovely, soft as an opiate. The musician heaped con- gratulations upon the boss, who smiled shyly and thanked the man for having put it all over so beautifully. For The Sign of the Cross back in 1932 DeMille hired twenty- five lions at $25 a day each, a lot of lions for a depression year. Word went out for the scenes to be shot as quickly as possible. The animals were to bound up some nearby steps preliminary to entering the arena and "devouring" Christians kneeling in the sands. The cameras were set and the lions herded into a heavily wired enclosure. Instead of rushing up the steps, they calmly lay down. DeMille turned to one of the trainers. "Listen, this is costing a frightful lot of money. When are those lions going up?" "Oh," said the trainer, "lions don't know anything about that; they don't go up stairs." 'Well," announced DeMille, "these lions are going up stairs!" He took a chair in one hand, an ax handle in the other, and entered the cage. Shouting, jumping up and down, he made