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158 Y^ Mr. DeMitte DeMille's reply pointed to his father's ministry which he said he was now privileged to carry on through motion pictures, the similarity of work between Edison's and his, causing him to retreat to a mountainous wilderness when wrestling with "picture ideas that I believe will bring happiness to millions/' just as Edison retreated to the 'little dark room in his house in Llewelyn Park/' He concluded: Will you write another letter and tell me in what way I am a "proud, selfish man"? Both letters appeared in the Press a short time later, pro- viding readers unexpectedly with a candid, softly mordant in- sight into the workings of the Hollywood producer s mind. DeMille went to special pains to inject certain touches in his pictures, some merely decorative. His clinical survey of every set kept decorators and researchers in a whirlpool of uncer- tainty. There were times when they would have sworn he had a telescopic lens attached to each retina, so remarkable was his ability to single out little faults in the most populated scenes. This sensitivity was put to a severe test many times during production of his Biblical pictures, mostly by extras unfamiliar with religious symbols. At the end of a particularly rough day he spied several "followers of Christ" making the Sign of the Cross improperly, that is, from right to left shoulder. DeMille told his first assistant, the late Edward Salven, to find out what their religious beliefs were. The result was varied, but there was not a Catholic among them. "Fire them. Get me all Catho- lics and have them here tomorrow/' DeMille ordered. Relating the incident later, Salven said he didn't get replacements. "We taught the ones who were fired how to make the Sign of the Cross, and brought them back in, and we got by with it. But you don't take a chance like that often with the old man." DeMille was almost irrationally allergic to sloppy, half- hearted acting. Even more than an alibi, it caused him im- measurable grief. There is an oft-told episode, typifying his shrewdness underfire, that took place one day when he was