#266: DeMILLE, Cecil B.: The King Of Kings (1927)

DeMILLE, Cecil B. (United States)

The King Of Kings [1927]

Spine #266
DVD

The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and the great showman's singular cinematic bag of tricks, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent — part Gospel, part Technicolor epic. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this beloved film in a two-disc edition featuring both the 112-minute general-release version and the rarely seen 155-minute cut that premiered at the grand opening of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

1927

155 minutes

1928

112 minutes

Black & White/Color

Silent

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2004

Director/Writers

Story and continuity by Jeanie Macpherson.

Cecil B. DeMille was 46 when he directed The King of Kings.

The Film

"The only way you could make a greater picture would be to have a better subject, and I doubt if there will ever be a better subject during our lifetime than the story of Christ.” — Will Rogers

The showmanship, the keen eye of the director, and the believability on the part of the actors all contribute to a well-made epic piece of cinema at the end of the silent era.

H.B. Warner is perfection as Jesus. Likewise, Jacqueline Logan (Mary Magdalene), Rudolph Schildkraut (Caiaphas), his son, Joseph Schildkraut (Judas), and (Ernest Torrence (Peter) are all superb.

Criterion gives us the original 155-minute version, with 2-strip Technicolor scenes of the beginning (Mary Magdalene with leopard and lascivious environment) and end (Resurrection).

The shorter version (112-minutes) was what most of the public saw in general release. The cuts were engendered by objections to parts of the Crucifixion and odd moments like the fish with the gold coin in its mouth (!) ...

For the long version, Donald Sosin — usually a reliable composer of silent film music — here delivers a midi-fied orchestral score that is almost always annoyingly tinny and disruptive.

The shorter version features two scores — a new one by Timothy J. Tikker (organ), and, the better one, the original Hugo Riesenfeld orchestral score.

Film Rating (0-60):

53

The Extras

The Booklet

Thirty-eight page booklet featuring essays by Peter Matthews, Robert S. Birchard, Grace Kingsley and DeMille.

Matthews:

"In the classical Hollywood era, it was axiomatic that the public didn't give a damn about directors. For all the notice taken of the profession by gossip columnists, fan magazine writers, and studio flacks, movies could have grown on trees or sprung Athena-like from the heads of the only talent that mattered — the stars. The reasons for this indifference aren't hard to figure. Directors tended to be stout, homely middle-aged men — not exactly the stuff that dreams were made of. Besides, what they did sounded too much like work to your ordinary filmgoer. It would require that seismic shift in taste known as auteurism to confer on the director a measure of the idolatry reserved for stars. In the meantime, there were a handful of rule-proving exceptions. As the legendary founding father of Hollywood, D.W. Griffith trailed clouds of glory well into the 1920s, though his Victorian hearts-and-flowers sensibility rendered him a magnificent dinosaur. Erich von Stroheim and later Orson Welles enacted the romantic tragedy of the Promethean genius struck down by angry gods (or at any rate the front office) for heroic overreaching. Filmmakers of less imperial dimensions might stamp their names on mass consciousness if they specialized. Ernst Lubitsch with his celebrated touch, Frank Capra with his sentimental populist corn, and the ultimate brand label, Alfred Hitchcock — each advertised a line of entertainment so distinctive as to earn that rarest of tributes, above-the-title billing."

Birchard:

"The King of Kings has become Cecil B. DeMille's most enduring film. What makes the film so moving is the simplicity and sincerity with which it was made. In a radio address broadcast over Los Angeles station KNX on July 11, 1927, DeMille concluded by saying: 'I am only the humble and thankful instrument through which the screen ... is carrying the greatest of all messages to hundreds of thousands of fellow human beings.'"

Kingsley:

"And then — there against a background of shrubbery and trees perched a picturesque little buff-colored plaster house, and on its veranda stood a man who startingly resembled the Christ. The sight was breathtaking. He wore a long, white mantle and in his face were lines of character, and of sadness, too. But it was his eyes that impressed you the most. This was our first glimpse of H.B. Warner in the sacred central role of The King of Kings."

DeMille:

"At no time in the world's history has humanity so hungered for the truth. Science has declared there is a God. And a groping, eager world cries, 'How may we find Him?' ... The answer goes back two thousand years, to a Man who stood with a little band of ragged followers in the midst of bigotry, cruelty, and ignorance, lighting with the torch of His own life the flame of hope in the heart of man and showing us by sublimet Sacrifice — Death and Resurrection — our own Immortality."

Commentary

None.

1927:

Score

By composer Donald Sosin.

Photos, advertisements

And telegrams from the film’s premiere.

Original press book

And illustrated program.

1928:

Score

By composer-organist Timothy J. Tikker, plus the original score by legendary composer Hugo Riesenfeld.

Rare behind-the-scenes

Footage of DeMille on the set.

Costume and scene sketches

Production and behind-the-scenes stills gallery, and a portrait gallery by set photographer W.M. Mortensen.

Trailers

From the film’s Broadway run in New York.

Extras Rating (0-40):

36

53 + 36 =

89

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