How many early talkies have you seen? For me, "Dynamite" is an extraordinary film for its time. For one, it looks like a real movie and not merely a photographed play. The performances, while a little extravegant, in the "queer flamboyant style" that critic Mordaunt Hall noted was DeMille's trademark, are quite good, and there are a number of sound usage innovations that were quickly absorbed by the industry and have lost their power to startle today--things like overlapping sounds, signaling the arrival of offstage characters with sound only, etc. Heck, even "Jaws!" looks dated today after thirty years of "Jaws!" rip-offs. It seems to me that DeMille was comfortable with sound from the very beginning, much more so than many other filmmakers, and I think that his three M-G-M talkies, Dynamite (1929), Madam Satan(1930) and The Squaw Man (1931) are head and shoulders above anything else M-G-M was turning out in this period on a technical level.
Thanks very much for the great answers about
DeMille, Bob.
I'm sure that I'll never see as many early talkie movies as I'd like, but I've genuinely enjoyed most of those that I've seen. I think
The Squaw Man (1931) is very moving and
Madam Satan (1930) is a great deal of fun. I mentioned
Dynamite (1929) as a bit of a disappointment because the print that I saw was poorly recorded and I was actually irritated by much of the seemingly incessant sound recording in the movie, particularly in the jail scene, but I can't say that about the other films of his from that same period. By the end of the movie, I was longing for some silence! I was probably just overwhelmed by that feature and the poor recording, which colored my judgment of the film. I will give it another try asap.
I'm so glad to see you clarify
Cecil B. DeMille's attitude toward HUAC. I have often wondered about the tendency of people on both sides of the issue to paint things in black and white terms, rather than looking at the mixture of artistic, economic and political forces determining some of the behavior of that period.
I'm glad that you mentioned the humorous side of
DeMille. Though I've yet to receive the copy of your book,
"Cecil B. Demille's Hollywood" that I ordered, I'm looking forward to reading it even more now.
If you have time, could you please address a few more questions later this week?
1.) Given what you've mentioned about
DeMille's politics not being black and white, what was his relationship, if any, with
John Howard Lawson, later one of the Hollywood Ten, who is credited as the writer on
Dynamite (1929)?
2.) Could you please talk about the times when
DeMille pushed the envelope about as far as it could go in depicting some forms of decadence on film? Based on your comments about his apparent humor, do you think that some of the outrageous scenes in a movie such as
The Sign of the Cross (1932) might have been meant as an "in joke"?
3.) Were
DeMille's films faced with as strong local censorship from various groups around the country as other filmmakers prior to the Production Code, or did his tendency to try to incorporate scenes of decadence in historical stories, especially ones with Biblical roots, protect him from the censors? Did
DeMille favor the Production Code or did he just accept it as inevitable to prevent government interference in the film industry?
4.) As a contributing writer to the omnibus volume
"M-G-M: When the Lion Roars" could you please address the role of
Irving Thalberg at that studio and his relationship with
L. B. Mayer? Do you think that
Mayer shared power comfortably with Thalberg at any time?
5.) Do you think that the literary roots of many of
Thalberg's ambitiously prestigious productions change MGM movies for the better in the '30s?
Thank you very much.