The Squaw Man

This is an adaptation of a stage play--an awful melodrama, which incorporates the Western and flirts with taboo love--adultery and miscegenation. Apparently, Oscar Apfel was doing poorly at teaching Cecil B. DeMille how to direct; there's plenty of outside filming, which is supposed to be a benefit of California, yet this movie is remarkably inept in how the framing of outside scenes is as theatrical as the scenes inside. Of course, it was a commercial success, leading DeMille to remake it twice, and is now a footnote in film history. Probably of more consequence than it being a feature-length film made in Hollywood, unoriginal reinforcement though it was, is the movie's soap opera histrionics coupled with a Caucasian playing a Native-American.

The actors of this movie protrude what their characters would be doing or feeling via gestures, staring at nothing and other magnified histrionics; they're trying to communicate the plot to the audience despite silence and a distanced camera. There's no realism, subtlety, nor, even, characters. The directors and actors of "The Squaw Man" blunder further by misunderstanding the silence concept. Silent films are silent to us, but the fictional world within a silent film is usually not silent. (Likewise, we still hear the music scores in modern films while the characters in the fictional world don't.) In this film, there are some awkward moments when a character lingers behind unnoticed, or is transparently suspicious-looking, but that happens to be when everyone is looking at something else. Yet, I suppose they still do that in soap operas.

In defence of DeMille, it was his first film, and senior director Apfel surely deserves more blame. One learns from imitation, and there weren't many worth imitating then. There was no indication in "The Adventures of Dolly" that Griffith would become the best director in the world. To see DeMille's potential, watch the subsequent year's "The Cheat". Its story is also wanting, flirts with adultery and miscegenation and is driven by embezzlement from charity, but, otherwise, the films couldn't be more different.

English cousins Dustin Farnum (as Jim) and Monroe Salisbury (as Henry) are made trustees for an orphans' fund. Mr. Salisbury has a fondness for betting on the horses, and pilfers money from the fund. For the sake of family honor, Mr. Farnum accepts responsibility for the missing funds, and sails off to America. Farnum buys a ranch, befriends the local Indians (Native Americans), and feuds with wicked William Elmer (as Cash Hawkins). When Salisbury dies, on the Swiss Alps, widow Winifred Kingston (as Diana) wants to bring Farnum home to England, but he's settled in America with Squaw Red Wing (as Nat-u-ritch)…

Due to its relatively long length, this is sometimes called the first feature film. It is also the noted as first feature filmed in Hollywood, California; but, you wouldn't know it - the Farnum ranch looks like Hollywood (check out the background), but the more memorable ship trek and heavy snowfall scenes can't be Hollywood (obviously). It's the first film by director Cecil B. DeMille, who shows some promise (in hindsight).

There are no great performances; Dustin Farnum was an important stage actor, getting acquainted with film. I thought Farnum was best and most impressive in the scenes with his "half-breed" son (who looks nothing like his Indian mother). Billy Elmer was entertaining in what should have been a larger role (Cash Hawkins). I found "The Squaw Man" confusing - some of the events and relationships are like... "fill in the blanks". The Indian/Englishman relationship was, perhaps, daring for an early film theme (if you can figure out what's going on); and, Ms. Wing was a real Winnebago Indian actress.

****** The Squaw Man (2/15/14) Cecil B. DeMille, Oscar Apfel ~ Dustin Farnum, Red Wing, William Elmer

The Squaw Man may be best remembered as the first picture directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and the first made in Hollywood, then a convenient wilderness. It's a rather inglorious debut on both counts, and nowadays is perhaps most interesting as an example of the early western feature.

In pioneer westerns of the 20s and 30s the main theme was usually the exploration of the unclaimed west, but in the 1910s the most common set-up was of a civilized easterner heading to an already-settled but still unruly west. This is the case in Griffith westerns like The Battle of Elderbrush Gulch (1913), as well as later features by DeMille such as The Virginian (1914) and A Romance of the Redwoods (1917). It's worth bearing in mind that, in this early part of the twentieth century the "old" west would have been a fairly recent memory, and the western was then more a lesson in geography than history. It's also rather apt given the circumstances of production – companies from the east going out west – and probably also the reason why they are called westerns and rather than being some sub-genre of the historical feature.

While the outsider in westerns of this period was typically a lady or gentleman of New York or some other east coast city, the titular squaw man is an Englishman. There are a few establishing scenes set in England, with a plot regarding an embezzlement from an orphan's fund that is very reminiscent of Griffith's biograph shorts. This is not surprising, as Griffith took his themes from the American stage where he began his career, and The Squaw Man is based on a play. The trouble is, Griffith was a master at making these theatrical stories cinematic, whereas the adaptation of The Squaw Man is rather flat and weak. The plot takes bizarre, improbable and pointless turns, sometimes getting bogged down in subplot and at other points zipping ahead making the narrative incomprehensible at times.

As noted this was Cecil B. DeMille's debut as director, although this is perhaps misleading. It was co-directed by Oscar Apfel, who had already made two-dozen shorts for Edison and Pathe. Accounts of the production state that Apfel handled the technical side of things, whereas DeMille coached the actors. DeMille may therefore be responsible for some of the fairly decent naturalistic acting on display here, although there are some lapses into appalling pantomime. There are some DeMille style attempts to photograph the imagination, with double exposures showing the hero dreaming of home, one of which is very effective, with a picture in a magazine morphing into the woman he has left behind. There also seem to be some experiments with lighting going on with some contrasting brightness and dimness in interiors, perhaps a forerunner of the Rembrandt lighting that would soon become a DeMille trademark. It is of course very difficult to accurately attribute ideas, although DeMille is also credited as "picturizer" (i.e. screenwriter) and producer.

In spite of these meagre marks of quality, as a whole The Squaw Man lacks excitement and real drama. In comparison DeMille's first feature as solo director, The Virginian, is a far more solid production, and although made only a few months after The Squaw Man it is light years ahead in style.

"The Squaw Man" (1914) co-directed by Cecil B. DeMille is considered the first full-length feature film from Hollywood.

In spite of it's historical significance, it is poorly directed, which can only be expected from the first effort in full-length film making.

The story revolves around a chivalrous British officer who decides to take the blame for his cousin's embezzlement and journeys to the American West to start a new life on a cattle ranch.

It is, quite simply boring and primitively executed and produced. Cecil B. DeMille would go on to direct some of early Hollywood's most genre-defining features such as his epic take on "The Ten Commandments" (1956), which I highly recommend anyone experiencing, but I only recommend his debut feature for film historians and enthusiasts.

Cecil Blount DeMille, a stage actor dabbling in playwriting, was able to secure through his mother's connections an association with Jesse Lasky, a successful Broadway vaudeville producer. The partnership proved beneficial for both in 1912, when the two rolled out a couple of financially very successful plays in New York City. DeMille, though, was tiring of the theatrical business and was catching the cinematic fever in 1913. With Lasky, Lasky's brother-in-law Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn) and several East Coast businessmen, DeMille became part of the newly-formed Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. The production company would concentrate on longer feature films, with its first one scheduled to be an adapted 1905 play called "The Squaw Man."

DeMille, who never directed a movie before, was assigned the directorship duties alongside veteran director Oscar Apfel. Together with camera/lighting/set designer crews and actors, the pair journeyed to Flagstaff, Arizona, to shoot the Western. After a few exterior shots in the mountains, however, they soon realized the small town was inferior to the look they wanted. They then boarded the train for Los Angeles, a growing community of filmmakers.

DeMille realized the perfect spot to produce "The Squaw Man" was the nearby town of Hollywood. He rented a barn on the corner of Selma and Vine Streets, converting it into a simple film studio for interior shots and editing (Paramount Pictures moved the barn in 1926 and is now the Hollywood Heritage Museum). Although not the first movie made in Hollywood--that honor goes to D. W. Griffith's 1910 short "In Old California, --"The Squaw Man" became the first feature film to be produced in Hollywood, 74 minutes in length.

DeMille was a quick learner while observing Apfel directing the cast and crew. He began to assume more directorial duties as the filming went into the final third week.

Before the production, the Lasky Company realized they needed a big star to attract viewers to "The Squaw Man." Lasky offered popular stage actor Dustin Farnum either up to $5,000 to be in the film, a pretty good chunk of money in those days, or a percentage of the Lasky Company (reportedly 25%). The actor took the money, but ultimately gave up millions since the small studio would eventually become a big part of the future mega- movie company Paramount Pictures.

While the movie crew was busily traveling and filming "The Squaw Man," Goldfish (Goldwyn) was criss-crossing the country selling the rights of the movie to exhibitors before it was released to the public. This became the first time a motion picture rights had been pre-sold before its production had been completed.

"The Squaw Man" made a ton of money for Lasky's company, profiting almost $250,000 in 1914. DeMille would go on and direct two remakes of the story, in 1918 and a sound movie in 1931.