YES, MR.DEMILLE (1959)

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78 Jes> Mr. DeMille might have been made by someone pulling the film between heel and floor. The sabotage was complete; every foot of the 5,000 feet of film was useless. In business less than two months, the young firm had its first taste of the film wars. Refilming would require another $15,000 and back in New York Lasky and Goldwyn were impatient for the picture, for its buyers were waiting. There appears to be some divergence in the accounts of the episode. Bill DeMille in his admirable account of the early days, Hollywood Saga, relates that Goldwyn, Lasky and Friend went out and drummed up another $15,000 and DeMille shot the picture a second time. DeMille, however, rejected this version. "One day shortly before we began shooting I saw a worker touch his cigarette to a small piece of waste film, It burst into flames, and the thought struck me that in a few weeks we would have a fortune tied up in a few lengths of highly inflammable film We de- cided to shoot every scene twice to have a spare negative, and each night I took home an extra can of film, and Mrs. DeMille placed it in the attic/' Then, when the picture was screened for the first time and they saw what had been done to it, "panic seized us. I remem- bered the other negative. Suppose it, too, was ruined or stolen! I phoned Mrs. DeMille to look quickly into the attic and not say a word to anyone. "The second negative was safe. I took it to New York, cut and edited the film on the train. No sleep for five days but I had to finish it/' Upon his return to the wild and woolly West, DeMille strapped on a gun and holster, and when he drove placed the weapon on the seat beside him. In the following weeks he twice heard sharp sounds near the studio that closely resembled pistol shots, leading to a subsequent biographical note that he was fired upon twice. Even with its production cost doubled, The Squaw Man