A Paramount Picture. A Cecil B. DeMille Production. Produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Screenplay by Harold Lamb, Waldemar Young, and Dudley Nichols (additional, uncredited writing by Howard Higgin, Jeanie Macpherson, and Charles Brackett). Photography: Victor Milner, A.S.C. Music: Rudolph Kopp. Technical effects: Gordon Jennings. Costumes: Travis Banton. Art directors: Hans Dreier and Roland Anderson. Assistant directors: George Hippard (first assistant), David MacDonald (second assistant), and Cullen B. “Hezie” Tate. Production manager: Roy Burns. Script clerk: Emily Barrye. Film editor: Anne Bauchens
Picture started: January 30, 1935. Picture closed: April 16, 1935. Picture reopened: April 30 to May 13, 1935, and again May 20,1935. Picture finished: June 4, 1935. Preview length: 1 1,262 feet. Final length: 1 1,265 feet (thirteen reels). Negative cost: $ 1,376,260.87. Released: August 21, 1935 (New York premiere), October 25, 1935 (general release). Gross film rental (through March 31, 1951): $1,491,471.83
Cast: Loretta Young (Berengaria), Henry Wilcoxon (King Richard), lan Keith (Saladin), C. Aubrey Smith (hermit), Katherine DeMille (Alice), Joseph Schildkraut (Conrad), Alan Hale (Blondel), C. Henry Gordon (Philip II), George Barbier (Sancho, king of Navarre), Montagu Love (blacksmith), William Farnum (Hugo of Burgundy), Hobart Bosworth (Frederick), and Lumsden Hare (Robert, earl of Leicester)
With the success of The Sign of the Cross and Cleopatra, Paramount was willing to loosen the budgetary purse strings for another historical epic, and DeMille obliged with his biggest production to date. The Crusades telescoped the seven historic Holy Land campaigns, which occurred between 1096 and 1291 a.d., into a single narrative, although Harold Lamb, a screenwriter for the film and the author of the book that inspired the project, noted:
It is the third Crusade with which story is concerned 1187 A.D. the year Saladin captured Jerusalem.
The failure of this crusade was caused by the personal quarrel of the leaders. This, in turn, was due to the bitter wrangle between Richard and Phillip of France, after Richard refused to marry Alice of France, and his strange marriage with Berengaria of Navarre en route to the Holy Land.
Aggravated, of course, by Richard’s arrogance and his assumption of leadership over the other princes, this quarrel became an open breach at the capture of Acre. The embittered princes returned home leaving Richard to march on Jerusalem with Hugo of Burgundy and a remnant of the once formidable crusade.1
Shortly after completing the script, DeMille and writers Harold Lamb and Waldemar Young attended a production meeting in Mannie Cohen’s office on January 7, 1935, to get reactions from Paramount producers and executives Benjamin “Barney” Glazer, E. Lloyd Sheldon, Jeff Lazarus, Mel Schauer, Bogart Rogers, and William Wright. The discussion was transcribed, and offers a sense of DeMille’s approach to bringing history and spirituality to the screen, as well as a sense of his ideas about dramatic construction:2
EMANUEL COHEN: This is a very important picture and will cost a lot of money. Have you anything you want to say Mr. DeMille?
CECIL B. DeMILLE: The prosecution usually presents its case first.
EMANUEL COHEN: Barney?
BARNEY GLAZER: I like it too much to prosecute. I think it is a very, very fine job indeed. My criticisms all relate to minor points, but there is one major question. Will we get in trouble with England and the English colonies for your suggestion that Berengaria, queen—or near queen, was desired of and spent some time in the tent of Saladin? It is a daring invention.
CECIL B. DeMILLE: I would think not. Even in England they thought Berengaria was a steamship until we started the picture. I did not know it until I read Harold Lamb’s book.
WALDEMAR YOUNG: English people as a people are not afraid … of their bloody history. Was Berengaria ever crowned Queen of England?
HAROLD LAMB: As a matter of fact, we know nothing about her except where she came from, where she was crowned and where she was married to Richard, and she appeared to the Pope in Rome—but everything else in her history is a blank——On her return after his [Richard’s] death, she just disappeared.
CECIL B. DeMILLE: … I want a cut to get 13 or 14 pages out of the script…. Did it impress you as being long?
BARNEY GLAZER: No. I didn’t think it was as long as Wally [Waldemar Young] said it was at lunch.
E. LLOYD SHELDON: I have Barney Glazer’s enthusiasm for the script and I think it is as well picture and a swell job. My concern [is] … I am rather anxious to see a stronger spiritual impulse—a stronger underscoring of theme …beginning [with the] desecration of [the]relics of Christ. There is a great dearth of common people….
CECIL B. DeMILLE: …We had it in the scene of the populace rising to a high pitch of fervor for the Crusade. But the moment you take rulers and show … the King of France and the King of Germany, Richard of England … and Hugo, a double-crossing bastard, …The little bickerings they [the audience] may know about are shown through [the] personal story … the only way that people would believe today that people would give up their lives for a piece of wood is to put in a personal story to hold them. To carry a character like Richard, who is the audience, to carry him through and show his acquirement of God and spiritual understanding and let the audience take it from that.3
E. LLOYDSHELDON: … I got a certain inconsistency of character with Saladin. First he comes on a proud and vengeful Turk, trampling people under horses hoofs. Is that gap bridged—Saladin here and Saladin later? I would rather have Saladin left out of the first scene. To see some other [Moslem] representative have that [anti-Christian] attitude….You have a world wide hero in Saladin because he allowed Christians to go into Jerusalem…. You alienate your audience at the start by having him there presentative of desecrations….
CECIL B. DeMILLE: …when Saladin comes along [at the beginning] with his attitude[it is] to make the audience feel the Crusade—to make them want to get up and fight. If we talk about relics or freeing Jerusalem, they [the audience] won’t care. Kids could understand Saladin’s attitude with the monk is there to show to the audience that it is going to be a great fight.
JEFFLAZARUS: It’s terrific stuff. The question of whether it is going to gross one million or five million is going to be decided by how spiritual the thing is going to be…. Without a picture that says here is the greatest fight that decent people have ever waged—how bitterly they wanted to wage it—you won’t gross five millions…. We’re not spending much time with the soldiers of the Lord, but with the Kings. You have already given them the tarbrush. Richard had no purpose—he went into it to get out of the way of one wife and to get meat for his men…. One group should tell the Crusade story …some group must have a great invincible, clean purpose….
WALDEMARYOUNG: If anybody in this room doubts the spirituality of this story, let him read it without choking up….
JEFF LAZARUS: Could I be permitted to disagree for a minute …
WALDEMARYOUNG: … at Acre—crawling to the Cross … at Windsor Castle—in the public square—people, not soldiers. It’s all through the story.
CECIL B. DeMILLE: If we don’t give out that spiritual thing we can start with a Cross and a rope around and it crashes to the street and go to a cut of a great bonfire and sacred books burning and then go to the slave market.
JEFF LAZARUS: I think it is superb.
WALDEMAR YOUNG: It is there[already in the script].
BARNEY GLAZER: If it doesn’t come out on the screen it will be C.B.’s fault. It’s in the story….
CECIL B. DeMILLE: All that sounds like I’m going to have to put back the …ride of the Crusaders across France. [It] was eliminated because of the cost. The little squire saying good-bye to his old mother—the young boy bidding his sweetheart good-bye—that shot is maybe what you are all missing….
E. LLOYDSHELDON: It is awfully important_______ The danger may be that you have lost the Crusades feeling….You think of these wretched souls that went over there and went through privations, when actually the Kings were only thinking of another province.
CECIL B. DeMILLE: That would be fatal.
JEFF LAZARUS: Fatal.
CECIL B. DeMILLE: The first part of the picture is developed to show the rise of the Crusades…. We have the hermit in the street with Saladin at the square—[later] with Phillip[of France]—and [in England at] the courtyard [of the Castle]. Then, if we gave them more [of the hermit] they [the audience] are going to say: “What the Hell?” Then … we carry them with the dramatic love story [between Richard and Berengaria] through the middle and they have had their relief through the middle part. And then we are at our climax of love and religion into Jerusalem and into the Holy Sepulcher and you end your story. … If the Hermit or anyone else goes on talking about God and religion through eleven reels, you are going to be in trouble at the box office.
JEFF LAZARUS: Just get it long enough so they can’t double feature it.
Although some minor revisions were made, the script remained essentially unchanged as DeMille brought The Crusades from page to screen. Fervor for the Crusade among commoners was depicted in large crowd scenes but was never really personalized through individual characters, although DeMille did add a brief cutaway of Richard’s young squire, played by future director Oscar Rudolph, saying good-bye to his mother and made sure that there were several other farewells spotted throughout the departure of the Crusaders from England. In the finished picture one can’t help but agree with the comments of Jeff Lazarus and Lloyd Sheldon. The venal motivations of the kings through much of the film’s running time make them all rather unsympathetic and tend to under-cut Richard’s last-reel conversion.
Henry Wilcoxon had a lock on the role of Richard the Lion Heart from the beginning, and DeMille notified production manager Roy Burns that “I want Harry Wilcoxon to start carrying the falcon around. Pick out the best of the birds we have, and have him start carrying him around until the bird knows him. Perhaps he should also feed him.”
Finding a leading lady for the role of Berengaria proved more of a chore. When Claudette Colbert’s name was floated, it was noted that she would be used only “if we are absolutely stuck for someone to play the part.” Madeleine Carroll was a strong contender in DeMille’s mind, but her home studio, Gaumont British, did not want her to do a costume picture. As late as December 6, 1934, he expressed a desire to interview Merle Oberon. However on December 10, he had Emily Barrye notify the casting department that “Mr. deMille does not think it will be necessary to bring Merle Oberon in after looking at Broken Melody.” Constance Cummings was rehearsing a play in New York, Ann Harding was ill, and Helen Twelve trees was considered to be “good in one picture—then poor in the next.”4
Olivia de Havilland was considered early on. She attracted attention for her role as Hermina in Max Reinhardt’s stage production of A Mid-summer Night’s Dream, but Florence Cole’s September25,1934, report was not encouraging:
Mr. Datig [Paramount casting director] says she is a San Francisco society girl—has never done any picture work, and has not made any screen tests.
Mr. Datig says she was in his office today—they are not interested in her, and he doesn’t think you would be.5
On October27, 1934, Fred Datig wrote DeMille that “There is a possibility that we can borrow Miss [Loretta] Young from 20th Century [Pictures], but Mr. Zanuck would like to read the script first. M-G-M want her too but no definite promise has been made. She will not be needed for 20th Century picture after January15th.”6
As the starting production date pushed back from late fall into the end of January 1935, Young became the clear choice for Berengaria. The price to borrow her from Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck’s 20th Century Pictures was $2,500 per week with an eight-week guarantee and $1,923 per week thereafter. She brought one advantage that another per-former might not. Although she was busy, having made a half-dozen pictures in the previous year, she was technically still a featured player and had not yet achieved star status. Young could be billed under the title, and not take thunder away from Henry Wilcoxon, who also had not yet earned star billing.
For the role of Blondel the Troubadour, DeMille wanted a singer who could act—or an actor who could sing. Character comedian Lynne Overman was rejected when he claimed to be only a “sporting house tenor.” Paramount had an option on the services of Everett Marshall, who had starred in RKO’s 1930 production Dixiana, but his price per picture was$15,000, and his name added little or no box-office value. DeMille asked casting to check with M-G-M about Nelson Eddy, who had yet to make a mark in films, and was advised by Fred Datig that “Nelson Eddy is a baritone, under contract to M.G.M. Studio and is scheduled to play opposite Jeanette MacDonald starting approximately October 15th for about eight weeks. Although Eddy has an excellent singing voice, he is pretty bad as an actor and M.G.M is anticipating plenty of trouble before their picture is finished. I hesitate taking a chance on him for Blondel.”7
While DeMille relied on Paramount’s casting department during the making of The Crusades, he continued his long-held practice of accepting personal solicitations from actors. In responding to are quest from actor Hobart Bosworth for a role in The Crusades, the director wrote: “I am looking forward with unusual joy and some trepidation to the making of the CRUSADES. It is probably the biggest yet undertaken, and I have put your name down at once to see where I can fit you in. It will be a pleasure to have you with me once again.”8
Bosworth had been the first true movie star, receiving “above the title” billing on The Roman (Selig Polyscope, 1909) at a time when virtually all film actors were anonymous. He had worked several times with DeMille in the 1910s, but by 1934 the sixty-seven-year-old actor had fallen on hard times, working only three days in his chosen profession during the year. He would eventually be cast as King Frederick of Germany in The Crusades and earn $1,000 for ten-days’ work out of three weeks. When every casting director in Hollywood had forgotten, Cecil B. DeMille remembered and offered work to actors who longed once again for the smell of greasepaint. Among those on DeMille’s “preferred list” for The Crusades were actors like Billy Elmer and H.B. Carpenter, who had worked in some of his earliest films and who were now reduced to playing occasional bits in low-budget Westerns. Former silent stars like William Farnum, Charles Ray, Betty Blythe, Grace Cunard, Bessie Eyton, Fealy, Pauline Garon, Ella Hall, Florence Lawrence, Alice Lake, Florence Turner, and Clara Kimball Young were also on the list—insuring that, if available and willing to play a bit part or an extra role, they would land at least a few days work in the latest Cecil B. DeMille Production.
In the Depression-bound 1930sthings were especially grim for Hollywood’s bit players, as studios sought to scale back budgets for their program pictures. Most extra people subsisted on six dollars per week. Dress extras, who supplied their own wardrobe, earned an average of $17.20 per week, and only forty-two of the thousands of registered extras earned over $35 weekly.9 With a budget for bits and extras of $72,208.32, The Crusades provided well over three thousand man-weeks of employment for Hollywood’s legion of extras.
The joy and trepidation DeMille expressed to Hobart Bosworth were both justified. Clearly the director was in his element, recreating history on a massive scale, but the sheer size of The Crusades made the production an ordeal. On September 26, 1934, DeMille expressed his concern to Roy Burns about progress on the costumes:
It appears to me now that we are heading for exactly the same difficulty that we had in Cleopatra. For that there was some excuse, because you had a designer leave you just prior to starting.
For The Crusades there will be no excuse if we are not ready, and my guess from present progress is that we will not be ready unless reorganization is made in thatdepartment.10
Costume designer Travis Banton was on thin ice over his slow work, but DeMille was reluctant to replace the well-respected designer. On January 5, 1935, Emily Barrye wrote Roy Burns: “Wait until we see what happens on Monday on the Loretta Young costumes, before anything is done about Banton.” Banton’s talent ultimately over came his lack of management skills, and he completed the costumes for the picture.
On January 29,1935, the day before the cameras were to roll, DeMille received word that Paramount had authorized a $40,000 increase in expenditures, bringing the budget to $1,040,000; but on the first day of shooting the budget went out the window as the picture fell a full day behind schedule. Three days later, the company was two days behind. And so it went. For the most part the assistant director’s daily reports noted no extraordinary delays, but the picture kept veering further and further from schedule, as DeMille took his time lining up and rehearsing shots and other things conspired to slow things down. On February 11, 1935, DeMille noted:
We had a man in foreground with a cheap part in his wig. He was right in the foreground and had a dead white part in his wig which was faky.
We save 8¢ on a wig like this that may cost us the retake of this scene.
This incident would serve as the inspiration for the production short Hollywood Extra Girl in which DeMille is shown in a staged scene berating assistant director David MacDonald for allowing an extra with a “1935 head dress” into a scene set in the twelfth century. But atleast some of the production delays may have been calculated, with DeMille playing for time to solve one problem by creating a diversion in another area. On February 13, the thirteenth camera day, there was a fifty-five minute delay “due to the fact Mr. DeMille was not satisfied with head dresses & wigs of the Christian slave women.” The following day, Emily Barrye noted the real reasons for such delays: “Mr. deMille had some trouble with Philo McCullough reading a line today and said to send you a note about hiring stock actors who couldn’t speak lines.” And:
WE WILLHAVE TO RETAKE THE SLAVE MARKET
Mr. deMille wants you to get a very good actor for the man who buys the girl and take[s] her down the stairs—not a $12 a day man.
Anne Sheridan [sic] was very good.
The girls around the Nun are okay if they are roughed up a bit.
Will need 5 to 6 new girls to carry the right hand line and front line.
Get the best actor you can for the auctioneer—not another Jew-ishcomedian.11
During outdoor shooting on there-dressed Roman street built for Cleopatra on February 20, four takes were spoiled by whistles from the set of Lewis Milestone’s production of Paris in Spring. And so it went. By March 5, the thirtieth camera day, The Crusades was nine days behind schedule. On March 14, and now twelve days behind, George Hippard recorded: “9 am call Mr. DeMille arrived at 9:25 & 25 minutes late after lunch call. 9:25 to 12:16rehearsing and lining up & rewriting script on account of illness of Wilcoxon since Wednesday & Miss Young being unavailable had to shoot scenes in which they were not in, out of continuity. 1½ pps shot.”12 On April 4 DeMille complained to Roy Burns, “Again and again we have had scenes spoiled by trucks passing through outside of stage although red lights were on. Would suggest that attention be called to this.”13
Preparations to shoot some of the big nighttime battle scenes on April 11, with catapults lobbing firebombs at the city of Acre, prompted Emily Barrye to advise the production staff to “Have plenty of men to put out fire balls on the ground. The …surcoats and capes should be fire-proofed.”14
Principal photography finally closed on April 16,1935, eighteen days behind schedule, shooting scenes in the ship’s galley and on the hill above Jerusalem. The picture was reopened twice to complete the battle montages. The final cost came in $336,000 over budget, with much of the overage covered by Cecil B. DeMille Productions.
As film editor Anne Bauchens cut the picture DeMille advised, “Assemble long shots. Don’t use so many closeups on first cut.”15 The edited picture clocked in at about 125 minutes’ running time. In all, some 387,788 feet of picture negative were used in making The Crusades (including special effects and transparencies), and374,805 of sound track negative—making for an astonishing shooting ratio of thirty- exposed for every foot that ended up on the screen. Five hundred and forty-seven still pictures were taken during production.
The Crusades was screened for two different groups of critics in the Paramount studio theater on Wednesday, July 31, and Wednesday, August7,1935. On August 5,1935, DeMille was informed by Rodney Bush of Paramount’s exploitation department that, despite its length, the picture would be released without an intermission. It opened August 21, 1935, at the Astor Theatre in New York on a road-show basis. General release followed in October.
The Crusades performed well at the box office, but ultimately failed to achieve commercial success, showing a loss of $443,986.65 as of a 1951 producer’s settlement statement. Still, DeMille was proud of The Crusades, and when he wasn’t promoting one of his current releases he would sometimes refer to it as his favorite film. He believed in the message of religious tolerance he felt he had injected into the story, and in his autobiography he stated that “Thanks to our treatment of the subject and the wonderfully sensitive performance of Ian Keith as Saladin, The Crusades has been one of my most popular pictures in the MiddleEast.”16 But in fact, when the film was offered by Paramount’s foreign department in 1936, censors in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine rejected itoutright.17 Eventually, it did play Egypt and Palestine and some other Middle Eastern markets, but the income tallies from these territories could hardly be considered impressive: Egypt—$19,234.53; Palestine—$6,291.20;Iraq—$232.68; Iran $ 1,254.67; and $ 134.75 in the rest of the Arab world.18