What went on when Hollywood’s biggest directors met behind : closed doors at the Beverly Hills Hotel on the night of Oct. 22, 1950? : Columbia Pictures wants to know and make a movie about . . . : THE NIGHT THEY DUMPED DEMILLE

In 1950, when redbaiting was an ugly Hollywood reality, director Cecil B. DeMille put all his muscle behind an attempt to depose Joseph L. Mankiewicz as president of what was then called the Screen Directors Guild.

Mankiewicz’s supposed offense: He had balked at imposing a loyalty oath on guild members.

As it happened, DeMille’s coup was thwarted by still other powerful directors--including John Huston, John Ford and William Wyler--who rose to Mankiewicz’s defense during a stormy, all-night guild meeting in the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Curiously, that bit of ancient history has now become the subject of tense discussion between Columbia Pictures and the Directors Guild of America.

Columbia executives, including Chairman David Puttnam, are eager to make a movie about the DeMille-Mankiewicz showdown. But guild officials--fearful of embarrassing some living directors who attended the Oct. 22, 1950 meeting--are so far withholding rights to a crucial transcript of the proceedings, according to individuals connected with the project.

“Some directors who were at the meeting are still alive, and some of them were on the wrong side,” said film maker Richard Brooks, who attended the meeting as a young director.

Brooks, 75, plans to write and direct the Columbia movie, which would have a budget of $3 million to $4 million. But the director said he would find it difficult to proceed without the exact wording of the impassioned speeches delivered by Ford, Huston and others among the 500 guild members who showed up for the hastily convened session. The members not only upheld Mankiewicz in the closed-door meeting, but also forced DeMille (who died in 1959) and 14 others to resign from the SDG board.

Michael Franklin, national executive director of the DGA, successor to the SDG, confirmed that the guild’s directors voted to withhold rights to the transcript at a board meeting in April, although Brooks was subsequently permitted to inspect the document on condition that he not discuss its contents.

“The (1950) meeting was limited to guild members, and sometimes members say things under the assumption that they are speaking only to other members. Whether they were aware at the time that a transcript was being taken, I don’t know,” Franklin said in explaining the board’s action.

Franklin said the board may reconsider Columbia’s request at a future meeting that will probably be held after conclusion of contract negotiations between the DGA and movie and television producers. The guild’s three-year contract expires on June 30.

In a further twist, Mankiewicz, 78, and living in Bedford, N.Y., claims to have what he believes is the only complete duplicate of the guild’s transcript of the meeting. But the director said he hasn’t been contacted by Brooks or Columbia. (“I still intend to write a book about it,” he said.) And Franklin said he considered it possible, though by no means certain, that the guild or individual directors might have rights extending to the Mankiewicz copy.

Brooks, Mankiewicz, Franklin and Columbia executives all declined to identify living directors who spoke out against Mankiewicz at the meeting.

According to Kenneth L. Geist’s 1978 biography of Mankiewicz, DeMille, known for his anti-Communist fervor, was originally a supporter of the guild president. But DeMille, who helped found the studio that later became Paramount and directed such epics as “The Ten Commandments” and “The Greatest Show on Earth,” reversed his position after Mankiewicz expressed reservations about enforcing a loyalty oath on all directors.

In August of 1950, as Mankiewicz sailed home from Europe after finishing “All About Eve,” DeMille, an SDG board member and behind-the-scenes kingmaker, convened an emergency board meeting to approve the oath. Shortly afterward, DeMille persuaded a group of board members to ask for Mankiewicz’s recall as president--and quickly dispatched motorcycle messengers to guild members’ homes with ballots that, according to Geist, were marked only with space to vote “yes.”

Mankiewicz staved off the recall and possible banishment from the industry, by finding 25 guild members who were willing to put their names on a petition calling for a general meeting to challenge DeMille.

“You can’t imagine the emotions. Some men were weeping. That’s how scared they were,” Brooks said of an Oct. 13 strategy session at Chasen’s restaurant during which Mankiewicz and supporters such as Huston and Billy Wilder sought the signatures needed.

“What resulted was beyond belief. The guild never did want the whole story told,” Mankiewicz said of the ensuing Beverly Hills Hotel meeting, which convened at 7:30 p.m. and ended at 2:20 a.m. Ironically, Mankiewicz, having triumphed over DeMille, quickly signed an open letter urging guild members to take the oath. Mankiewicz went on to direct “Cleopatra,” “Suddenly, Last Summer,” “Sleuth” and other films.

According to Geist’s account, Frank Capra, now 90, was part of the committee that demanded Mankiewicz’s recall; but Capra resigned his committee membership in support of Mankiewicz at the meeting. According to a newspaper account at the time, all the ballots that had been cast to oust Mankiewicz were ordered destroyed at the meeting.

Catherine Wyler, a movie development executive at Columbia, said the idea of a DeMille-Mankiewicz movie grew out of her work on a television documentary about her father, the late director William Wyler. “In the course of a discussion with (Columbia chief David) Puttnam about good, true stories, this came up as a really fascinating investigation into a lot of important issues of the time,” Wyler said. A strong supporter of Mankiewicz, William Wyler directed such movies as “Wuthering Heights” and “Funny Girl.”

Several individuals familiar with the movie said that Columbia Chairman Puttnam is especially interested in the project. Before joining Columbia last year, the British-born Puttnam produced several movies that dealt with historical situations, including “Chariots of Fire” and “The Mission.”

Despite the guild’s uneasiness, DGA official Franklin said he could understand why Columbia is intrigued by the DeMille-Mankiewicz conflict. “There’s definitely drama in it. I don’t know if it’s high drama, but it’s drama,” said Franklin.

The guild presented its own rendering of the event in a documentary produced for its 50th anniversary last year, according to a guild spokesman.

In addition, “A Film Maker’s Journey,” a widely acclaimed documentary on the life of the late director George Stevens, also included some details of the incident. Among them was an account of a particularly striking speech--by some accounts the turning point of the evening--during which director John Ford (“Grapes of Wrath,” “Stagecoach”), who died in 1973, pronounced his respect for DeMille’s artistry, if not his politics. “I don’t agree with C. B. DeMille. I admire him,” Ford supposedly said. “I don’t like him. But I admire him.”

Brooks said if it is ever made, he doesn’t expect the movie to have wide commercial appeal. “I don’t know if today’s young people would want to see it,” said the director, whose extensive credits include “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Elmer Gantry.” But, he said, “we can do it if we keep it at a cost where no one gets hurt.”