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288 Yes, Mr. DeMitte newspaper literati and the slick magazine gentry, only those of the New Yorker cracked DeMille's apparent indifference. In 1949 the magazine ridiculed DeMille, and riddled Samson and Delilah. An assistant approached DeMille with a copy of the New Yorker review, and was questioning its logic when DeMille turned on the aide with sudden fury. "Do you think for a moment the New Yorker crowd cares whether Samson and Delilah is good or bad! This is a political attack against me, against my beliefs! It has nothing to do with the picture/' The ashen-faced assistant nodded, as if comprehending the reasonableness of the view, and quickly withdrew. Something of the real depth of this feeling came to the surface with a gesture uncommon to Hollywood. The New Yorker was sharply critical of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's new version of Quo Vadis, produced under Mervyn Leroy. DeMille, who had not seen the picture, called Freeman and urged that the motion picture industry unite against the magazine. "Mervyn Leroy is young and can't take this sort of thing," he cried. "I've been through it and I'm used to it." DeMille was not one to let a conviction lie fallow, especially when it was backed up by studio associates. Support of the boss's views too often had little meaning, in view of the fact that it was hard not to agree with him. He set out his belief that there was a world conspiracy attacking him through his pictures. The declaration won ap- proving nods. From then on, staff members were sent on mis- sions of considerable secrecy, usually to ascertain the political stripe of an offending critic. During this troubled period Bosley Crowther made a visit to the DeMille office. The noted film critic of The New York Times had already rendered a lukewarm verdict on Samson and Delilah.