Cecil B. DeMille was the most successful filmmaker in early Hollywood history. Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood is a detailed and definitive chronicle of the screen work that changed the course of film history and a fascinating look at how movies were actually made in Hollywood’s Golden Age.

     Drawing extensively on DeMille’s personal archives and other primary sources, Robert S. Birchard offers a revealing portrait of DeMille the filmmaker that goes behind studio gates and beyond DeMille’s legendary persona. In his forty-five-year career DeMille's box-office record was unsurpassed, and his swaggering style established the public image for movie directors. DeMille had a profound impact on the way movies tell stories and brought greater attention to the elements of decor, lighting, and cinematography. Best remembered today for screen spectacles such as The Ten Commandments and Samson and Delilah, DeMille also created Westerns, realistic “chamber dramas,” and a series of daring and highly influential social comedies. He set the standard for Hollywood filmmakers and demanded absolute devotion to his creative vision from his writers, artists, actors, and technicians.

Robert S. Birchard, a film historian, is the author of King Cowboy: Tom Mix and the Movies. His In the Beginning episode of the Discovery Channel’s Hollywood Chronicles series won a silver award at the Houston International Film Festival. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Reviews:

Finalist for the 2004 Theatre Library Association Award

"[A]s a veteran film editor and art historian, his take on the DeMille years and its influence is something to note."--News-Sentinel
 

"An indispensable starting point, especially for an investigation of the director's early work. . . . There's seldom a wasted paragraph and, even at 430 pages, it's a tight book."--Film Quarterly

"Far and away the best film book published so far this year. . . . He [Birchard] had full access to DeMille's papers and records, and draws on this archival material like a true cinematic archaeologist."--National Board of Review

"A meticulous and closely detailed study of DeMille and the films he made."--Journal of American Studies

"Birchard has unearthed a treasure store of details regarding DeMille's career. . . . A detailed and definitive chronicle of cinematic work that changed the course of film history."--Educational Book Review

"Birchard brings this colossal showman, producer, and director to life in this very readable and well-researched study."--Choice

"Offers a persuasive portrait of a determined, irrepressible and creative life. . . . A remarkably good narrative read."--Sight & Sound

"It appears that no one knows more about Cecil B. DeMille and his films than Birchard, and we are graced with the opportunity to learn much of what Birchard has uncovered concerning DeMille over many years."--Silent Era

"Entertaining enough to satisfy almost any reader who cares to know how Hollywood operates and what it takes to survive there."--Wall Street Journal

"Robert Birchard has unearthed a treasure trove of details regarding DeMille’s career, including the early history of Paramount Pictures that paralleled his own. What a valuable contribution to film scholarship!”—Leonard Maltin

“The definitive work on the films of this most American director and showman. Robert S. Birchard examines each of DeMille’s films in awe-inspiring detail and in chronological order, but this is no typical 'Films of…' volume. Through painstaking research into the director’s personal archives and through examination of all of DeMille’s extant films (and a surprising majority have survived), Birchard documents not only the life work of this extraordinary and often controversial filmmaker but also his relevance to the industry and to American society and culture.”—Anthony Slide, author of Silent Players and The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry

“Solid, well-researched film history—the way it ought to be—refreshingly free of the jargon that has for so long demeaned our craft.”—Kevin Brownlow, co-producer and director of Hollywood—The Pioneers and author of The Parades Gone By

“The author has dug long and hard for solid facts versus theory and speculation. Birchard’s wide-ranging frame of reference with regard to film history and technique and his perusal of various archival collections, the films themselves, studio house organs, trade periodicals, and individual recollections have produced a solid work of scholarship that augments and goes beyond previous works about the director.”—Rudy Behlmer, author of Behind the Scenes: The Making Of..., Memo from David O. Selznick, and Inside Warner Bros.

“Robert Birchard has written a fascinating history of Cecil B. DeMille’s singular career in Hollywood. The depth of his research and the level of detail he achieves are truly astounding. I can’t imagine a more scholarly or durable assessment of DeMille’s working methods and the artistic and commercial results they brought.”—James Curtis, author of W.C. Fields—A Biography and Between Flops: A Biography of Preston Sturges

“A detailed and definitive chronicle of the screen work that changed the course of film history and a fascinating look at how movies were actually made in Hollywood’s Golden Age.”—Hollywood Heritage Newsletter