SCFZ

Polling the films of director Cecil B DeMille

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the DeMille films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Tuesday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: brian d, greennui, ofrene, kanafani, bure, greg x, oscarwerner, silga, dt, umbugbene, roscoe

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

i've only seen three, and i don't think any of them are among his best-known films, but one was good:

The Cheat (1915)

incidentally i just posted a lot of the recent polls to letterboxd (demy, imamura, siegel, kubrick), and posted links in their respective poll threads, which are in the director poll archive section of the forum

The Ten Commandments (1956)
Four Frightened People
The Sign of the Cross
Why Change Your Wife?
The Crusades

Hard to know what even to say about DeMille. The morality exhibited in his movies is so far askew from reality that it reads less as a comment on the characters than on a uninhibited yet parochial world view of the time, with all the problematic aspects one might expect such a thing to contain coming from someone keen to indulge the US audience in all their contradictions. DeMille has a real flair for envisioning those contradictory desires of holier than thou goodness and lurid exploitation and selling both at the same time under the guise of spectacle. There's some difficulty in saying that though as much of the spectacle still works, so the feeling of distance from the values is met by acceptance of the terms of engagement. It's the fascinating strength of matched nonsense, the appealing ridiculousness of the stories tied to far less appealing underlying attitudes. Hard to place that within the usual context of discussion about movies, merit, and morality, which, I guess, us why I find DeMille so interesting.

I haven't really engaged with his biblical movies and related "epics;" there's been enough to chew on in his secular movies to keep me busy up until now. Seems like they operate from a distinct conceptual base from the ones Greg's describing above... Anyway...

Seen nine.

Joan The Woman
Madam Satan

Seen 6

1. Reap the Wild Wind
2. Madam Satan

Seen 11. Agree: Most parts of his biblical movies look boring. But he was famous for some "sense of the grandiose":)
1.The Ten Commandments (1956)
2. The Cheat (1915)
3. Cleopatra (1934)
4. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
5. Unconquered (1947)

seen 2

madame satan

I will say this for the Ten Commandments, it sounds great in its own weird way. I mean the selection of actors is so bizarre that the voices of the world of the film just jump out for the differences in accent and delivery between them in a really engaging, though ridiculous, way.

Lencho_of_the_Apes wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2019 10:17 am

lencho, you can pick our next director if you like!

Seen 2, loved 1, blah blah

Cleopatra

Nah, I'll pass. Whoever was next.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)
MADAM SATAN
CLEOPATRA
THE CHEAT
MANSLAUGHTER

Such a weird filmography. I like the sound TEN COMMANDMENTS a lot -- a grand mad avalanche of high-camp Hollywood Piety that only creaks when Heston is onscreen, croaking out his lines as if they were, in fact, Holy Writ. It's interesting to see who can take that outlandish dialogue and make it work, who can be human while talking that way. Nina Foch in particular scores on that, as her Bithia comes alive as more than a mere plot contrivance. The villains have all the good lines and moments, as when Vincent Price is going to have a fabulous time flogging John Derek as Joshua The Shirtless Stone-cutter. And Brynner's scenes with Edward G. Robinson always delight, well, me anyway. Brynner in particular is a joy to watch -- flexing and posing and purring out his lines and seducing everything in sight and yet, somehow managing to make me feel bad for the poor guy when those marble gods don't keep his son alive -- Heston's loud Prayer of Thanksgiving at being freed really makes one think there should be an eleventh commandment about Winning Gracefully. And as bad as Heston is, his considerable physical magnetism makes me believe that it really is he, and not John Fulton & Co, who parts that damn Red Sea. MADAM SATAN speaks for itself, as does CLEOPATRA. MANSLAUGHTER might make way for SIGN OF THE CROSS, again, merely because of the energetic villains all thoroughly enjoying themselves, but CROSS's self-pitying Martyr Complex gets unsavory after a while.

madam satan
union pacific
four frightened people


haven't seen many of the famous ones but i wish i could vote for chicago - supposedly ghost directed by demille. the hardest version!!

also i've got a copy of greg's fave 'four frightened people' so maybe give it a watch so i can vote one more. jungle adventure

next is rischka! if you'd like to pick our next director, feel free!

can we do detoth or lewis or someone like that. or maybe we've already done them. can't remember

Seen 10, only liked The King of Kings, but not enough to vote on it. DeMille is without a doubt one of the most bloated, cringeworthy and silly storytellers in Hollywood history. He literally gives Griffith a run for his money - and at least Griffith could pull of a sense of grandeur.

rischka wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2019 3:42 pm can we do detoth or lewis or someone like that. or maybe we've already done them. can't remember

DeToth has been done, who's Lewis?

https://letterboxd.com/director/joseph-h-lewis/

this lewis. sry. there's probs more than one. anyways i have only 8...

have we not done wyler?? we should do wyler. probs everyone has enough

rischka wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2019 4:04 pm
have we not done wyler?? we should do wyler. probs everyone has enough

We've done Wyler. The Best Years of Our Lives rightfully won.

we've done both de toth and wyler (i actually nominated both of them, good choices!) but we haven't done joseph h lewis (and there is another lewis we could do some time, jerry lewis). joseph h lewis could work, i have 8 as well, so let's check if we have two more people with 8+ joseph h lewis films seen, and if so we'll poll him next!

Four Frightened People is as weird as so much of the rest of DeMille's movies, but lower budget, so it's more a conceptual oddness with the socio-sexual "examination" condensed to a few representative individuals and transposed to the jungle to see which values best survive, or something. Sorta like A DeMille version of Gilligan's Island maybe.

After some reflection, I kinda feel like DeMille is the Hollywood version of Jack Kirby, slightly different fetishes, but the same sense of exaggeration, love of splash page-like visuals and characters that seem as if they were created by someone who only heard about humans secondhand. A mix of the grandiose and banal, skilled yet unrefined, a combination hard to explain or duplicate.

Can't help with Lewis (Joseph H), only got 4, more than enough Jerrys though

Seen 4.

1. Madam Satan

rischka wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2019 4:04 pm https://letterboxd.com/director/joseph-h-lewis/

this lewis. sry. there's probs more than one. anyways i have only 8...

have we not done wyler?? we should do wyler. probs everyone has enough

Thought you meant jerry lewis after I pressed send but then you don't strike me as a jerry lewis connoisseur lol.

Some directors not done yet: Losey, Carné, Peter Hutton, William Wellman...

i kind of wish i could get into jerry lewis. maybe someday.

i'd go for losey but don't know that he has many fans here. wellman would certainly work

i've got 19 wellman and 13 losey. what say you scfz

if (joseph h) lewis won't work let's do losey

9 Wellman, 8 losey, insufficient Joseph H

8 Losey, 8 Wellman, 1 J.H Lewis.

14 Losey, 14 Wellman, 4 J.H. Lewis

yeah wellman and losey will definitely have the views, so we'll keep losey as a fallback option, but if there any other people who have seen 8+ joseph h lewis, please post here, and if he has enough viewership we'll poll him. if i don't see enough lewis replies by friday morning, i'll start up a losey poll.

Seen 6.

1. The Ten Commandments (1956)
2. Samson and Delilah
3. The Greatest Show on Earth