Mention of one of the De Milles immediately brings to mind the other. Cecil and William are as easy to say in one breath as Anthony and Cleopatra, Nip and Tuck and Mutt and Jeff.
Cecil B. De Mille is one of the few directors of today whose name carries a picture to the financial success that greets a picture bearing the name of a great star. It appears that he first rode to national fame when he inaugurated a series of pictures bearing such mandatory and interrogatory titles as “Don't Change Your Husband” and “Why Change Your Wife?”
But long before this he was cutting wide swaths in the old fashioned method of directing by doing his work in a distinctly individual and better way. Pictures such as “The Golden Chance” and the first edition of “The Squaw Man” stamped him as considerably more of an artist than the earlier pioneers in the art of directing.
Cecil De Mille was, perhaps, the first director to use the method of producing his pictures in continuity, as outlined by his brother in the previous chapter. Perhaps this is the reason that he early secured such superior results to those achieved by the general run of directors in the early days.
Or perhaps on the other hand it is his ability to handle actors and actresses so as to get the very utmost from their efforts. For Mr. De Mille claims that one of the primal rules of directing is “never tell an actor how to play a scene.”
On this axiom, he states, lies the secret of achieving real characterization and absolute naturalness on the screen.
This may appear to be a perfectly natural conclusion to some readers. An actor of ability knows his business and therefore knows how to develop a true characterization. All he needs is a few words from the director as regards the timing of his transition from one emotion to another.
This is becoming more and more true as the art of picture production develops but the time is easily recalled when directors boasted that they acted out every part of the picture so that their casts might secure the proper grasp of the story.
I remember very well one director, a big man in his day but who has since sunk to oblivion as far as picture production goes, who used to take great delight in showing his players how to play certain scenes.
After a few preliminary rehearsals he would become disgusted, or pretend to become disgusted, with the efforts of his cast and thereupon he would act out each and every role for the cast's benefit. It was rather ridiculous to see him affecting the coy mannerisms of an ingenue, then jumping quickly into the role of the hero and from there to the contrasting part of the villain. He would even perform the butler with pompous dignity for the benefit of the extra who was playing the part.