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  • H.B. Warner, who played Jesus, was involved in a real life scandal with an anonymous woman who was determined to blackmail Cecil B. DeMille by ruining the production. It is believed that DeMille paid the woman on the condition that she leave the U.S.

  • Cecil B. DeMille did not want to take any chances with the film. His two stars, H.B. Warner and Dorothy Cumming, were required to sign agreements which prohibited them from appearing in film roles that might compromise their "holy" screen images for a five-year period. DeMille also ordered them not to be seen doing any "un-Biblical" activities during the film's shooting. These activities included attending ball games, playing cards, frequenting night clubs, swimming, and riding in convertibles.

  • This film features author Ayn Rand as one of the hundreds of people in a crowd. At a time when Rand was a struggling immigrant, DeMille gave her the job to help get her on her feet.

  • This was the first film shown at Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

  • 'Cecil B. Demille' intended that the role of the Jesus Christ go to J.B. Warner, a handsome and popular actor in westerns at the time. By the time production began, J.B. Warner had passed away of tuberculosis at age 29. Instead, H.B. Warner (Henry B. Warner) was cast as Jesus. Contrary to popular misconception, the two were not actually brothers. According to an in-depth article on J.B. Warner in "Classic Images" by Grange B. McKinney, the two were not even related. J.B.'s real name was James B. Tobias, and he adopted the surname of Warner after H.B. Warner's family took him in and raised him. This error of familial appears in several reference books.

  • The Temple of Jerusalem set was constructed on the RKO backlot in Culver City. It was redressed as the "Great Wall" set that the title character breaks through in King Kong (1933). It was later reused in David O. Selznick's The Garden of Allah (1936) and finally went out in a blaze of glory after it was redressed with Civil War era building fronts, burned and pulled down by a tractor to represent the burning of Atlanta munitions warehouses in Selznick's Gone with the Wind (1939).


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