The Plainsman (1937): Cecil B Demille's\n Greatest Authenticity Lapse?

Cecil B. Demille was a seminal founder of Hollywood whose films were frequently denigrated by critics for lacking historical verisimilitude.For example, Pauline Kael claimed that DeMille had "falsified history more than anybody else" (Reed 1971: 367).Others argued that he never let "historical fact stand in the way of a good yarn" (Hogg 1998: 39) and that "historical authenticity usually took second place to delirious spectacle" (Andrew 1989: 74).Indeed, most "film historians regard De Mille with disdain" (Bowers 1982: 689) and tended to turn away in embarrassment because "De Mille had pretensions of being a historian" (Thomas 1975: 266).Even Cecil's niece Agnes de Mille (1990: 185) diplomatically referred to his approach as "liberal."Dates, sequences, geography, and character bent to his needs."Likewise, James Card (1994: 215) claimed that: "DeMille was famous for using historical fact only when it suited his purposes.When history didn't make a good scene, he threw it out."This DeMillean fact-of-life was also verified by gossip columnist Louella Parsons (1961: 58) who observed that DeMille "spent thousands of dollars to research his films to give them authenticity.Then he would disregard all the research for the sake of a scene or a shot that appealed to him as better movie-making."As Charles Hopkins (1980: 357, 360) succinctly put it: "De Mille did not hesitate to turn the meandering stream of historical record into a straight channel if by doing so he made his films more exciting and comprehensive to a general audience; but if he simplified history, he was seldom guilty of conscious distortion."In fact, Diana Serra Cary suggested that DeMille's un-authenticity was itself an auteuristic trademark: After combing all the libraries and other sources for every fact and figure bearing on his theme, De Mille just as methodically set about throwing out that data that did not match up to his own conception of good history as being good theater.This was a De Mille hallmark and one in which he took considerable pride.Not every historian had such resources at his command nor, indeed, was so high-handed in his disregard for history (Cary 1975: 222).DeMille's absurd, inaccurate and unauthentic reputation was artistically encapsulated in the following clerihew that he recorded in his own autobiography, namely: Cecil B. De Mille, Much against his will, Was persuaded to keep Moses Out of the War of the Roses" (DeMille and Hayne 1960: 106).

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