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280 Je$, Mr. DeMilk inevitable products of man's fallen nature, along came the state censor—a hydra-headed monster spewing purity and morality. DeMille took note of the new menace. He was at the peak of his "bathroom period" in 1923 when he issued a pre-Christ- mas statement to the press, damning censorship as "the most pernicious influence in America today." He didn't feel it was Hollywood's duty to protect the public from awful truths like the existence of evil women. "The censor's mind is the eye of the needle and the great story minds of the world are the camels trying to pass through." He was suffi- ciently wroth over the issue to add: "This civilization is riding to a fall just as Rome did." For DeMille, the wars with censors went back to Joan the Woman, his first epic, and provided him with the first in a large repertory of border incidents to illustrate the low quality of the censor mentality. Joan the Woman was tabbed by critics and patrons alike as worthy of a place with the finest half- dozen films of the era. It had another distinguishing feature. It was a silent yet it starred the most renowned dramatic soprano of her day, Geraldine Farrar. Goldwyn and Lasky had hired the Metropolitan Opera beauty for a kingly sum to appear in not one but three silent pictures. All racked up splendid grosses, leaving a distinct impression among observers that the era was so golden that even errors in judgment paid off. DeMille took Joan the Woman to New York for a showing to censors and ministers. The screening over, a minister said he did not see anything offensive in the picture. A woman censor disagreed. "Yes, there is one thing that has to come out/' she said. "It's the line where Joan says, 'My God, my God, why hast thou for- saken me.*" DeMille asked the woman whether she knew who had first spoken that line.