This is a guest post for Silent London by Kevin Brownlow, the Oscar-winning film historian, filmmaker and author. On 16 November 2019 the Kennington Bioscope is holding a Cecil B DeMille Day at the Cinema Museum in London, in honour of the great director who started out in the silent era. The programme for the day has been curated by Brownlow and includes prints from his own 16mm collection. All the silent films will have live piano accompaniment. Here Brownlow introduces his highlights of the day and DeMille himself.
When did you last notice anyone screening a Cecil B DeMille Retrospective? He is the most neglected of the Great Pioneers – DW Griffith, Thomas Ince and Mack Sennett – and yet he could be as controversial as Griffith, as innovative as Ince and as funny as Sennett.
The DeMille Day opens with Cecil B DeMille: American Epic, an hour-long documentary (from Photoplay) about DeMille’s silent career, with interview subjects including DeMille himself, Gloria Swanson, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Elmer Bernstein who wrote the music for this documentary as well as for The Ten Commandments. Continue reading Kevin Brownlow on Cecil B DeMille: ‘controversial, innovative and funny’