While vacationing in Europe, movie director Cecil B. DeMille had been laid low with rheumatic fever, ruining his trip. He wasn't quite recovered when he returned to direct what film historians claim is his worst film, September 1922's "Manslaughter." There are variety of reasons for the ignominious crown in the director's palette of movies, most of which occurred in front of his camera.
It wasn't due to the lack of research in the preparation of the Jeanie MacPherson script, based on woman suffragette Alice Miller's 1921 novel of the same name. MacPherson wanted to experience the process being booked for a crime and living in jail as the protagonist, played by Leatrice Joy, had experienced in the story. DeMille approved of a scheme to have her get arrested for stealing a friend's fur, who was also in on the act, and be a prisoner for a few days. The police eventually found out about the ploy and released her. But the experience, details which were incorporated in her screenplay, jolted MacPherson so much she wrote an article titled 'I Have Been In Hell.'
So what makes "Manslaughter" so campy? The over-the-top dramatics of several actors, especially Thomas Meighan, the boyfriend lawyer of the carefree Lydia, is one whose dramatics is reminiscent of a bygone era. He sees his girlfriend headed down a slippery slope because of her wild behavior even before she accidentally kills a police officer during a high speed chase. He readily voluteers to be the prosecuting attorney charging her with manslaughter. His motive: to get her life back in order. After her conviction and imprisonment, Meighan displays such inner turmoil that one could see his neck blood vessels almost burst.
Even Leatrice Joy's performance is reminiscent of those seen in film during the early 1900's. The actress claimed she based her screen persona on attending a Los Angeles trial of a woman up for murder. But Joy's melodramatics carry such heady mannerisms that when someone showed the movie at her daughter's birthday 40 years after "Manslaughter" was released, the former actress "thought it was hilarious."
Of course, what would a DeMille movie be without a spectacular scene or two. In two fantasy sequences paralleling the plot, one has Joy overseeing an ancient Roman drunken fest where all participants are passed out, only to be intruded by aggresive barbarians. The other is a dream sequence where Joy shoots her boyfriend at a heavily-attended trial, sending the courtroom spectators scurrying around like disturbed ants.
