Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood

38. Something to Think About

38 Som~thing to Think About A Famous Players-Lasky Super Production. A Paramount-Artcraft Picture. A Cecil B. DeMille Production. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Original story and scenario by Jeanie Macpherson. Art director: Wilfred Buckland. Production manager: Howard Higgin. Photography: Alvin Wyckoff and Karl Struss. Film editor: Anne Bauchens Picture started: January 20, 1920. Picture finished: March 30, 1920. Length: 7,140 feet (seven reels). Cost: $169,330.00. Released: October 3, 1920. Gross: $915,848.5 I Cast: Elliott Dexter (David Markley), Claire McDowell (his housekeeper), Theodore Roberts (Luke Anderson), Gloria Swanson (his daughter, Ruth), Monte Blue Uim Dirk), Theodore Kosloff Uester, at the circus), Julia Faye (Alice Blair), Mickey Moore (Bobby), James Mason (a masher), Togo Yammamoto (a servant), Guy Oliver, and Agnes Ayres In addition to The Wanderer, Cecil B. DeMille also had his eye on Richard Walton Tully's Bird ofParadise as a future picture property. As he went into production on Why Change Your Wife?, DeMille heard that George Loane Tucker, director of The Miracle Man, was planning to make a film of Tully's play. He complained to Lasky and was told to "PAY NO ATTENTION TO TUCKER'S STATEMENTS YOU WILL POSITIVELY GET BIRD OF PARADISE PROVIDED WE ARE ABLE TO ACQUIRE IT."I Bird ofParadise remained an elusive property, and plans to produce The Wanderer evaporated with Paramount's need for more and cheaper specials. Instead Jeanie Macpherson and DeMille concocted Something to Think About, a confused allegorical tale that is long on symbolism and short on substance. Again, the scenario borrows elements from several sources. The central symbol of Life being tested in God's forge comes from a passage in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Village Blacksmith," and there is a reasonable possibility that F.N. Westcott's 1916 novel Dabney Todd, which centers around a blacksmith and his daughter, provided 155 156 / Cedi B. DeMille's Hollywood some inspiration as well. The Greek legend of Pygmalion also added to the mix.2 Even The Wanderer was used in framing Something to Think About. The biblical play is a retelling of the parable of the prodigal son. In Macpherson's scenario, Ruth Anderson is the prodigal who is never turned away by her Heavenly Father because she never denies God-as does her father, Luke Anderson-and never worships false idols-as does her suitor, David Markley.3 The box-office success of The Miracle Man was a consideration in developing a modem story with a religious theme, and Claire McDowell's upturned heavenly gazes in Something to Think About are reminiscent of Joseph J. Dowling's similar poses in George Loane Tucker's picture. Elliott Dexter was sufficiently recovered to resume his screen career, but in the best nineteenth-century tradition of tailoring a vehicle to the talents and limitations of a starring player, DeMille and Macpherson incorporated the actor's condition into their story. "Elliott Dexter was ... slightly lamed after his illness," wrote DeMille, "and Jeanie Macpherson wrote the scenario around a lame man's frustrated and embittered but finally victorious search for love."4 As with many of the later DeMille-Macpherson religious stories, fate and redemption strike an uneasy balance, but in Something to Think About the issue seems especially muddled. The central conflict develops when Ruth Anderson elopes with the man she loves, leaving her father and handicapped fiance-benefactor behind. Both men are embittered, and the father is blinded in an accident. Although Ruth is the catalyst for all the misery that befalls the characters, she is not the one to receive the religious conversion. One could say that her actions are inspired by love, whereas Markley and her father are motivated by a desire to exert control over her, and therefore she is not touched by the hatred that withers their souls. However, such a reading cannot account for other elements in the story. A carnival clown serves as a stand-in for the devil, offering misleading prophesies. A thieving derelict serves as an inspirational motivator, even as he picks Ruth Anderson's pocket. Markley's housekeeper is the instrument of divine intervention, although she has no active role in the story, and Markley's worship of idols (he collects the religious art of vanished cultures) is more benign than sacrilegious. The only message in Something to Think About that can be gleaned with any degree of certainty is that the Lord works in mysterious ways. [3.133.109.30] Project...