Coal miner Hagon Derk is sentenced to hang for murder. His only concern is for his young sister Katie, who will be left all alone. Frivolous socialite Cynthia Crothers has her own troubles. By the terms of her grandfather's will, if she is not married by her twenty-third birthday (only a month away), she will not inherit his millions and will be left penniless. She is "engaged" to Roger Towne, but he is married to Marcia. Marcia has her own lover, Marco, and is willing to grant Roger a divorce ... for the right price. The two women haggle behind Roger's back and settle on $100,000.
Hagon, desperate to provide for Katie, offers his body for $10,000 in a newspaper ad. Cynthia offers him the money in exchange for him marrying her. He accepts. Just minutes before Hagon's execution though, the real killer is goaded into attacking a man with a gun and is fatally shot. He confesses before dying, and Hagon is released.
Hagon goes to see his stunned wife. When her friends show up to party the night away, he sees Cynthia writing a $25,000 check as a down payment to Marcia and discussing the terms of their agreement. Hagon grabs the check stashed in Marcia's garter and shows it to Roger as proof that he has been made a pawn. Roger tells Cynthia that he will settle with Marcia himself, but if Cynthia gives her the check, they are through. Cynthia rips up the check as Marcia threatens to expose the plot. The pair go downstairs where Cynthia reveals that she married another man. When Hagon reveals he is her husband, Cynthia is made a laughingstock. Hagon throws out the partygoers, which frightens the men and arouses the women. Cynthia shows little appreciation for his saving her from the mockery and locks herself in her room. Hagon breaks down her door. After a brief confrontation, Hagon flings $10,000 at her and leaves.
When Cynthia is informed that she must actually be living with her husband on her birthday, she drives to his mining town. He refuses to go back to her apartment, so she persuades him to let her stay with him. He agrees on condition that she cook and clean, just like a real wife, and locks up her fancy car in his tool shed. Her first attempt at preparing a meal is a dismal failure. Katie kindly helps out and keeps it a secret from Hagon, but Cynthia confesses. Hagon tells her it is the first honest thing he has seen her do.
The next day, while shopping at the local store, Cynthia buys a gift for a young boy. His mother objects, but the child runs away with his present and is hurt in a traffic accident. The doctor says that only a brain specialist in the city can save him, but the boy only has hours to live. Cynthia breaks into the tool shed, speeds away in her car and returns with the specialist. The child is saved.
Hagon returns from work to find the door of his tool shed demolished and learns that Cynthia withdrew $2,000 from the bank (to pay the specialist). He assumes that she got tired of his way of life and went to see Roger. When Hagon demands an explanation, Cynthia is too disheartened to reply. She telephones Roger to come for her. However, the child's mother tells Hagon what Cynthia has done.
When Roger shows up, he insists on seeing Hagon before leaving. They go down into the mine to find him. A cave-in traps the trio with only fifteen minutes worth of air. Hagon finally confesses he loves Cynthia. Then he realizes there is a way out. He quickly packs a stick of dynamite into a wall; there is another chamber on the other side with enough air to sustain them until they can be rescued. However, without a fuse cap, someone will have to strike the dynamite with a sledgehammer to set it off. After arguing, the two men toss a coin for the privilege. Roger "wins", but Hagon wrestles the sledgehammer away from him. After Cynthia whispers something to Roger, he tells Hagon that Cynthia wants to say goodbye to him. When Hagon goes to Cynthia, he asks her to get on with saying what she needs to say. Confused, she reveals that she said she loves Hagon. With the two safely out of the way, Roger sets off the dynamite and is blown to pieces. As Hagon carries Cynthia into the opened chamber, he tells her that he was wrong about Roger - that he was a brave man after all.
Dynamite was DeMille's first full-length sound film (a silent version was also released simultaneously), and casting the right actors (with adequate voices) proved a difficult process. Development began on the heels of the release of his previous film, The Godless Girl, which had featured hastily added sound footage (now currently unavailable for viewing) and which had been a box-office disappointment.
Filming of Dynamite began on January 29, 1929, and lasted until April 30. Scenes for the silent version were shot beginning on May 28 and ending on June 5.[5] Charles Bickford would later describe the script as "'a mess of corn' with terrible dialogue."[6]
Dorothy Parker, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, was commandeered to pen the lyrics for an original song for Dynamite. Her third try, titled "How Am I To Know", and set to music by Jack King, was accepted and featured in the film's prison sequence; after that introduction into the film, the music is used in a foxtrot form by a pianist in an impromptu party given at Johnson's home just after Bickford arrives there (and is hustled out of sight of the guests), a subsequent sequence in the mining town where Johnson teaches Bickford to dance (and they almost kiss) to music coming from Bickford's radio, and also under the film's "The End" credit.[4]
Reception
The New York Times reviewer Mordaunt Hall had mixed feelings about DeMille's first talkie, calling it "an astonishing mixture, with artificiality vying with realism and comedy hanging on the heels of grim melodrama."[7] "Even in the work of the performers, there are moments when they are human beings and then, at times, they become nothing more than Mr. De Mille's puppets", "behaving strangely and conversing in movie epigrams".[7] Nonetheless, Hall approved of the efforts of Johnson ("an accomplished actress") and Bickford ("a splendid performance"), though he could not say the same of Nagel ("does not act up to his usual standard").[7]
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship. His silent films included social dramas, comedies, Westerns, farces, morality plays, and historical pageants. He was an active Freemason and member of Prince of Orange Lodge #16 in New York City.
The Cheat is a 1915 American silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Fannie Ward, Sessue Hayakawa, and Jack Dean, Ward's real-life husband.
The Farmer's Daughter is a 1947 American comedy film directed by H.C. Potter that tells the story of a farmgirl who ends up working as a maid for a Congressman and his politically powerful mother. It stars Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, and Charles Bickford, and was adapted by Allen Rivkin and Laura Kerr from the 1937 Finnish play Juurakon Hulda by Hella Wuolijoki, using the pen name Juhani Tervapää.
Charles Ambrose Bickford was an American actor known for supporting roles. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for The Song of Bernadette (1943), The Farmer's Daughter (1947), and Johnny Belinda (1948). His other roles include Whirlpool (1950), A Star Is Born (1954), and The Big Country (1958).
The King of Kings is a 1927 American silent epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It depicts the last weeks of Jesus before his crucifixion and stars H. B. Warner in the lead role.
The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American silent religious epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Written by Jeanie MacPherson, the film is divided into two parts: a prologue recreating the biblical story of the Exodus and a modern story concerning two brothers and their respective views of the Ten Commandments.
Julia Faye Maloney, known professionally as Julia Faye, was an American actress of silent and sound films. She was known for her appearances in more than 30 Cecil B. DeMille productions. Her various roles ranged from maids and ingénues to vamps and queens.
Anne Bauchens, born Roseanne Bauchens, was an American film editor who is remembered for her collaboration over 40 years with the director Cecil B. DeMille. In 1940, she won the Academy Award for film editing.
The Plainsman is a 1936 American Western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. The film presents a highly fictionalized account of the adventures and relationships between Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, and General George Custer, with a gun-runner named Lattimer as the main villain. The film is notorious for mixing timelines and even has an opening scene with Abraham Lincoln setting the stage for Hickok's adventures. Anthony Quinn has an early acting role as an Indian. A remake using the same title was released in 1966.
Catherine Townsend Johnson was an American stage and film actress.
Cleopatra is a 1934 American epic film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and distributed by Paramount Pictures. A retelling of the story of Cleopatra VII of Egypt, the screenplay was written by Waldemar Young and Vincent Lawrence and was based on Bartlett Cormack's adaptation of historical material. Claudette Colbert stars as Cleopatra, Warren William as Julius Caesar, and Henry Wilcoxon as Mark Antony.
The Sign of the Cross is a 1932 American pre-Code epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and released by Paramount Pictures. Based on the original 1895 play by English playwright Wilson Barrett, the screenplay was written by Waldemar Young and Sidney Buchman. It stars Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Claudette Colbert, and Charles Laughton, with Ian Keith and Arthur Hohl.
Madam Satan or Madame Satan is a 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy film in black and white with Multicolor sequences. It was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starred Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth, and Roland Young
The Squaw Man is a 1931 American pre-Code Western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It was his third time filming the same play but the first in sound. It stars Warner Baxter in the leading role.
This Day and Age is a 1933 American pre-Code film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Charles Bickford and Richard Cromwell. It is one of his rarest films and has been released on home video through the Universal Pictures Vault Series DVD collection.
The Devil-Stone is a 1917 American silent romance film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, co-written by his mother Beatrice deMille and Jeanie MacPherson, and starring Geraldine Farrar. The film had sequences filmed in the Handschiegl Color Process. Only two of six reels are known to survive, in the American Film Institute Collection at the Library of Congress. This was the last of Farrar's films for Paramount Pictures.
Don't Change Your Husband is a 1919 American silent comedy film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gloria Swanson. The film was the third of six "marriage films" directed by DeMille and the first DeMille film starring Gloria Swanson. A print of the film is stored at the George Eastman House. The film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment with The Golden Chance. A Chinese silent film, Don't Change Your Husband (1929), used the same English title, and a similar plot arc.
For Better, for Worse is a 1919 American silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gloria Swanson. The film was the second of four "marriage films" directed by DeMille and the second DeMille film starring Gloria Swanson. For Better, for Worse was adapted for the screen by William C. DeMille. Jeanie MacPherson wrote the film's scenario.
Saturday Night is a 1922 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Leatrice Joy, Conrad Nagel, and Edith Roberts. It was Leatrice Joy's first film with DeMille.
Free and Easy is a 1930 American pre-Code comedy film starring Buster Keaton. It was Keaton's first leading role in a talking motion picture.
↑ Birchard, Robert S.; Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood; University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, 2004; p. 236.
1 2 Cady, Brian. Dynamite, "Film Article" at Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Turner Broadcasting System, a subsidiary of Time Warner, Inc., New York, N.Y. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
↑ Birchard, Robert S.; Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood; University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, 2004; p. 234
↑ Louvich, Simon; Cecil B. DeMille: a life in art; Thomas Dunne, New York, 2007; p. 290
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