DeMille, Cecil (1881-1959)

Director, producer, screenwriter, dema?gogue. Although latterly identified with Biblical epics or risque society comedies, DeMille was an important figure in the early history of the Western. In 1914 he co-directed The Squaw Man, a six-reel epic that was among the first films to be shot in Hollywood, and later he remade it, twice. The bulk of his Western output was pro?duced before 1920, but he returned to the genre in the sound era and made several large-scale films that could be touted either as saddle sagas or as epics of Americana. None of these quite has the verve of Reap the Wild Wind (1942), which in its use of John Wayne, Raymond Massey and a lawman vs. outlaws plot is almost a Western at sea, but there is still much to enjoy in such over?blown entertainments as The Plainsman or Union Pacific.