Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Cast: Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, Lila Lee, Theodore Roberts
Have I Seen It Before: Nope.
Did I Like It: It seems like most films these days are slightly over-cooked, ultimately ill-considered attempts to appeal to the widest possible, least discerning audience. Some may blame the glut of Marvel movies devouring most of the budgets, ticket sales, and multiplex screens. Others might have seen no turning back after the release of Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope (1977). Still more might have seen the excesses of films like Cleopatra (1963) eventually leading to the major studios being taken over by large multinational corporations.
I think we were all in trouble the moment this one came running through the movie houses.
DeMille is more at home amongst an epic, so trying to force a production of his into the tight packaging of a what essentially amounts to a romantic comedy feels like a mis-step. Even the greats can occasionally have a misstep. The problem comes more from the fact that I can just see Paramount—or Famous Players-Lasky, the label used for this film as Paramount was still sorting out its eventual identity—seeing what is essentially a drawing room play* and feeling like they were not going to be able to sell a restrained version of DeMille. Hence, the extended dream sequence where all of our characters are suddenly in Ancient Babylon. For reasons. This reeks of a compulsory studio note, and perhaps the first example of such a mandate, and likely the first one to sour an entire picture. Additional reading indicates that the film tried to shy away from the J.M. Barrie source material—no, not that one—because the audience might hear the phrase “Admirable Crichton” and think the film takes place at sea. DeMille never had a chance.
*Even when its on the shore of a desert island, the mechanics of the story don’t surpass the limitations of a drawing room play.