Claudette Colbert

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS

Paramount, 1932.  Directed by Cecil B. DeMille.  Camera:  Karl Struss.  With Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Claudette Colbert, Charles Laughton, Ian Keith, Arthur Hohl, Harry Beresford, Tommy Conlon, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Vivian Tobin, William V. Mong, Joyzelle Joyner, Richard Alexander, Nat Pendleton, Clarence Burton, Harold Healy, Robert Manning, Charles Middleton, Joseph Bonomo, Inez Seabury, Lillian Leighton, Otto Lederer, Lane Chandler, Wilfred Lucas, Jerome Storm, Florence Turner, Gertrude Norman, Horace B. Carpenter, Carol Holloway, Wynne Gibson, Robert Seiter.

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

In Rome in the year 66 A.D., hedonistic Emperor Nero burns the city of Rome and blames it on the Christians, who threaten his belief that he is the master of the world.  When Titus, an elderly apostle of Christ, arrives in Rome to deliver St. Paul's message, he draws half of the sign of the cross in the sand, to which the Roman Flavius responds with the other half, after which they are arrested.  Marcus Superbus, the prefect of Rome, intervenes and pardons them at the request of Mercia, a beautiful and virtuous Christian woman.

Then Dacia, a courtier, reports to the Empress Poppaea, who is in love with Marcus, that he has fallen for a Christian.  Tigellinus, who is Marcus' rival for Nero's devotion, sees his chance to prove that Marcus is disloyal by arresting the very Christians Marcus has pardoned.

That evening, when Mercia sends young Stephanus to fetch the bread for dinner, Tigellinus arrests and tortures him to confess the whereabouts of the secret Christian meeting.  Stephanus faints, however, before he can name Mercia a Christian.  Marcus learns of the arrest and nurses Stephanus' wounds, then leaves with troops to stop Tigellinus.  Poppaea orders Marcus to come to her, however, and he is detained as Tigellinus' men attack the Christians with arrows.  By the time Marcus arrives at the meeting, both Titus and Flavius have been killed.  Marcus commands the troops to end the massacre and rescues Mercia, ordering that those still alive be taken to prison.

Mercia is brought to the palace that night and Poppaea, determined to make Marcus forget Mercia, swears her love to him.  Tigellinus then convinces Nero to make an example of Marcus by executing him for treason, but Poppaea intervenes, insisting his motives are not religious, but sexual.  She then orders that Mercia be taken from him.

Marcus, meanwhile, proposes to Mercia but, when she accuses him of wanting her only as his sexual slave, he curses her Christianity.

Later, during a palace orgy, Marcus mocks Mercia's virtue by having the court temptress Ancaria perform a lascivious dance for Mercia in a futile attempt to arouse her.  Meanwhile, outside the palace, the Christians sing a dirge as they are led to the prison.  The eerie music frightens Ancaria, and she is unable to continue dancing, and Marcus is forced to end the orgy.  Mercia then explains that Marcus' love cannot overcome Christian truth, and he nearly forces himself on her, but Tigellinus interrupts with an order for her arrest.  Marcus, in a rage, begs Nero to spare Mercia, but Poppaea insists Mercia be killed.

The next day, thousands of Romans gather at the arena to witness the execution of one hundred Christians by lions, as well as a host of bloody spectacles planned by Nero to please the blood-thirsty crowd.  As the barbaric audience cheers and makes wagers, gladiators kill each other, African pygmies fight half-naked Amazon women to the death, and men wrestle wild beasts.  The orgy continues as tigers devour maidens and gorillas and naked girls are tied to posts.  Finally, the Christians are led, praying, out of the dungeon and into the arena.  When Stephanus becomes paralyzed with fear, Mercia promises to meet him in heaven.

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

Marcus arrives moments before Mercia walks up the steps to the arena, begging her to renounce her faith so that she might live.  He admits he prayed the night before, and she swears her love, promising to teach him the Christian faith.  Suddenly he is full of strange hope and is willing to die in order to have her as his wife in heaven.  As Marcus and Mercia walk to their death, the dungeon doors close, creating the shadow of the sign of the cross.

Notes
The film is based on the play The Sign of the Cross by Wilson Barrett (London, May 27, 1895).

Although the film lists the copyright as Paramount Productions, Inc., copyright records list it as Paramount Publix Corp.  Wilson Barrett's play was first performed as one of several productions of a theatrical tour in the U.S. in 1895, which began in St. Louis.  It was first seen in England in Leeds the same year and became a sensation when it opened in London on May 27, 1895.  Barrett was famous for his portrayal of Marcus Superbus on the stage.  Paramount demanded thirty-five percent of the gross receipts from renters for this film.

Cecil B. DeMille made a personal appearance at the Boston premiere and travelled to the east coast on November 14, 1932 to assist in the studio campaign to get this picture through official censor boards without deletions.  On December 10, 1932, MPH reported, however, that prior to the film's release, three or four minutes of screen time were cut in which Marcus becomes "the immobile focus of a bombardment of Lesbian wiles offered by a dancing wanton."  After early screenings in New York, MPH reported, an "entrancingly sadistic passage limning the approach of a herd of hungry crocodiles waddling to an arena feast of edible, white fleshed Christian girls" was also cut.  MPH stated that audiences would love the film "provided their sensibilities survive the odors of Lesbos and de Sade."  According to the film's file in the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library, the Hays Office wanted Ancaria's seductive dance around Mercia eliminated entirely.  In his autobiography, DeMille recounts the conversation he had with Hays Office director Will H. Hays regarding the scene.  After Hays asked DeMille what he was going to do about the scene, DeMille responded, "Not a damn thing."  The dance stayed in the picture.

An MPPDA memo outlines scenes cut by the Singapore censors, which include:  trucks carrying dead bodies, a gorilla dancing around a nude girl and elephants walking over Christians and picking them up with their tusks, all of which were not in the viewed print.  In July 1932, Alfred Cohen, president of B'nai Brith of Cincinnati, wrote to Carl E. Millikin of the Hays Office protesting the making of this film, which he claimed was highly offensive to Jewish people.  Jason Joy, also of the Hays Office, assured Milliken that there was no basis for Cohen's apprehension concerning antisemitic propaganda, and the matter apparently was dropped.  According to a FD news item on February 27, 1935, a dubbed version of The Sign of the Cross opened in Venice, Italy on March 2, 1935.  According to FD, this film was the first offering under a contract closed with Paramount by Clement Giglio, an Italian-American impresario, who would henceforth handle Paramount's Italian releases.  For his work on the picture, cinematographer Karl Struss received an Academy Award nomination.

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

Var reported that during World War II, because of the Allied campaign in Italy, DeMille recommended that this film be re-issued with a prologue uniting the themes of Nero and Adolf Hitler's dictatorships.  Prologue production was completed March 25, 1944 and reportedly cost $100,000-125,000.  The reissue came out in 1944, with a prologue lasting 8 1/2-11 minutes, according to various contemporary sources.  While Nazi forces occupied Rome, the studio rushed marketing of the reissue, which was released December 1, 1944.  According to a memo in the Code file, the 1944 version received a certificate of approval after a shot of "a robe falling out of scene, presumably leaving a woman naked," was deleted.  Mitchell Leisen was the art director for the prologue, which was written by Dudley Nichols.  The cast for the prologue was as follows: Stanley Ridges (Thomas Lloyd), Arthur Shields (James Costello), Tom Tully (Hoboken), James Millican (Captain Kevin Driscoll), Oliver Thorndike (Lieutenant Robert Hammond), William Forrest (Colonel Hugh Mason), John James (Lieutenant Herb Hanson), and Joel Allen (bombardier).

The prologue takes place in the present of 1944.  An American B-17 bomber drops propaganda leaflets over the eternal city to inform Roman citizens that the Allies will be bombing only military stations.  As they fly over Rome, two chaplains, a Protestant (Lloyd) and a Catholic (Costello), reminisce about ancient Rome and Nero's persecution of tens of thousands of Christians.  Parallels are drawn between Nero and Hitler.  The final shot of the prologue is of four planes flying off into the distance.  A short epilogue shows the American bombers heading back to North Africa—mission accomplished.  In 1944, NYT reported that there was talk of Paramount re-editing the original Roman bath scene in which Empress Poppaea (Colbert) is immersed in 500 gallons of wild asses milk.  In the original version, the cameras caught a glimpse of Colbert's breast as she bathes.  In the scene, two kittens are shown drinking from the bath, and press material states that the kittens were added to show the authenticity of the milk bath.  By April 2, 1944, it was decided DeMille could keep his bath scene.  The NYT reported on April 2, 1944 that some scenes were omitted from the first version to fit the prologue, but it is unclear which scenes were cut.

In Nov 1932, Motion Picture Magazine published an article about DeMille "defying the Depression" by hiring 4,500 extras for this film.  The article said that half of The Sign of the Cross extras worked with DeMille on The Ten Commandments; and nearly two-thirds on The King of Kings.  DeMille reportedly preserved old lists of extras.  His casting directors faithfully called every actor on the list before hiring new people.  In reference to the hungry actors who hoped for a part in this film, DeMille is reported as having said:  "It was heart-breaking...they'd lie in wait for me wherever I went...I don't suppose anyone in Hollywood has heard as many hard-luck stories as I have these last months."  Wynne Gibson reportedly walked onto the The Sign of the Cross set and DeMille cast her as a lady in audience at the Roman orgy.

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

According to DeMille's autobiography, this film's general release took place during the "Bank Holiday" in the height of the Depression, when every bank in the country was closed in order to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the entire banking system.  As a result of a nationwide dearth of cash, DeMille writes, motion picture theater managers accepted "unsecured I.O.U.'s scribbled on little pieces of paper," as admission to this film.  Nearly every one of them was redeemed, DeMille reports, when cash began to flow again.

According to a modern source, Mitchell Leisen served as Assistant Director and Art Director on this film, as well as handling costumes, for which he received credit on the viewed print.  Modern sources state that John Carradine was in the cast.  A British film version of Barrett's play was made in 1904, directed by William Haggar and starring Will Haggar, Jr. and Jenny Linden.  Famous Players Film Co. made a film version of the play in 1914, directed by Frederick Thomson and starred William Farnum and Rosina Henley.  Paramount re-released the 1932 DeMille version on February 9, 1934 and reissued it in June 1938.  Portions of this film were used in the religious documentary Through the Centuries.

Music includes:  "Ancaria's Song and Dance," music by Rudolph Kopp, lyrics by Sidney Buchman, and "Christian Hymn No. 1," music and lyrics by Rudolph Kopp.

American Film Institute Catalog

Additional photos courtesy of Gary and Frances