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312 Yes, Mr. DeUille He has the weakness of those who have tasted power and the mentality of those who realize its futility/' Editorially, the Saturday Evening Post judged that "if De- Mille has accomplished nothing else he has at least enriched the English language, for his name is commonly used to de- scribe such things as the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi flood, an onyx bathroom or a Palm Beach debutante party." Almost on the day this estimate went into American homes, a world poll of movie exhibitors placed DeMille far and away at the top of his industry. The writer and consultant to stars, Rufus Blair, was on a DeMille set one day and within earshot when a sce- narist was repeating from a script an order given by George Washington to a Virginia militiaman. DeMille asked whether Washington had given such an order. The scenarist said no. "Then/' said DeMille, "take it out of the script. You can't change Washington's biography. It's like giving Jesus of Nazareth a new line in the Gospels." Upon departing Blair voiced what for the moment may be a reasonably apt summary of this lofty temperament. "He's a weird despot with a fundamental con- tempt for the human race, a great genius with marvelous skills, basking in the warm rays of his own personal sun." He could allow no scene to pass ungilded. His mind, basically theatrical, saw great epochs in terms of episodes of ornate melo- drama connected by a thin cord of narration, like pearls on grocery twine. No human actor ever rose above the majesty of a DeMille spectacle, unless it was DeMille himself. It was im- possible for many to see his pictures without sensing his pres- ence. It was as a melodrama-maker that he became an exhibitionist of astonishing stature. He turned the spotlight upon himself with a boldness never equaled in Hollywood. Will Rogers called him his own biggest epic. Carl Sandburg told him he had seen every