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Cecil B. DeMille thought silent movies were here to stay but by 1929, there was no doubt he would have to adjust. Later he looked back on the changes it wrought: "To leaf through my shooting script for Dynamite (1929) is to see at a glance what sound had done to films. The dialogue, typed in red, is the outstanding feature on each page; and some of the dialogue in the first reels seems...painfully bright and brittle, as if we were dinning into the audience what good playwrights we were, now that they could hear as well as see." Despite DeMille's low opinion, Dynamite is more interesting than many another early talkie thanks to the great director's penchant for melodrama and excitement.
Dynamite was not only DeMille's first complete talkie, it was also his first movie during his short tenure at MGM. The director, a fixture at Paramount Studios, had tried to become an independent late in the 1920's but did not succeed. MGM took him under its wing although, as one of the most autocratic directors of all time, DeMille chafed under MGM's production line methods.
The plot for his first film for the new studio did not, however, come from the front office. DeMille got the idea himself, sparked by a headline reading MAN MARRIES WOMAN TWO HOURS BEFORE HE IS HANGED FOR MURDER. Working with writer Tyler Brooke, he turned it into a story about an heiress, in love with a married man, who must be married by a certain date or she will lose the trust fund she needs to get her lover a divorce. To get around the terms of the fund, she marries a man on death row expecting to become a wealthy widow. However, before the condemned man can be executed, the real killer is found!
As was typical with Hollywood casting at that time, DeMille turned to Broadway for some of his actors. The hot-tempered star Charles Bickford began his decades-long film career playing the condemned man while Kay Johnson, star of the stage version of A Free Soul (1928) played the heiress. Mitchell Leisen, art director on Dynamite and later director of such classics as Midnight (1939), tried to steer DeMille toward another actress: "Carole Lombard was originally announced for the role Kay Johnson played. DeMille made a test of Carole and decided she wouldn't do, much to my disappointment, since Carole and I were already close friends and this was her big chance."
Another immigrant from the East Coast also played a small role in the making of the film. Algonquin Table wit Dorothy Parker was at MGM working on a script that was never made. At loose ends, she was recruited to write a song for Dynamite since, at that time, no talking picture was complete without a song. Her first effort, "Dynamite Man, I Love You," was rejected as was, according to legend, one called, "Dynamite, Dynamite, Blow My Sweet One Back To Me." Finally Parker concocted "How am I to Know?" which, set to music by Jack King, is sung during a prison house scene.
DeMille crammed enough plot for three movies into Dynamite. A last-minute reprieve, two intersecting love triangles and a spectacular mine cave-in sparked by the titular explosive helped DeMille blow Dynamite to a higher level of excitement than the typical gab-fests of the early talkie era.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Screenplay by Jeanie Macpherson with additional dialogue by Macpherson, John Howard Lawson and Gladys Unger
Producer: Cecil B. DeMille
Cinematographer: Peverell Marley
Editor: Anne Bauchens
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons and J. Mitchell Leisen
Cast: Conrad Nagel (Roger Towne), Kay Johnson (Cynthia Crothers), Charles Bickford ('Buddy' Derk), Julia Faye (Marcia Towne), Joel McCrea (Marco), Muriel McCormac (Katie Derk).
BW-127 min.
by Brian Cady
 
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31 Days of Oscar Highlights for Feb. 14
Katharine Hepburn co-stars with Humphrey Bogart in the WWII adventure, The African Queen (1951), followed by another Hepburn favorite Summertime (1955), a nominee for 2 Academy Awards. Other honorees include Casablanca (1942) & The Lady Eve (1941).
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