FORDISM
Michael Cieply’s account of the Directors Guild’s repudiation of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1950 loyalty oath campaign conveys in passing a misimpression of John Ford’s assessment of DeMille (“The Night They Dumped DeMille,” June 4).
In the course of delivering the coup de grace to DeMille’s McCarthyite attack, Ford doubtless felt the need to say something favorable about DeMille before proceeding to skin him alive. He did not, however, “pronounce his respect for DeMille’s artistry,” as Cieply notes in passing.
As two directors actively involved in the meeting (Guild President Joseph L. Mankiewicz, in Peter Bogdanovich’s book on Ford, and Robert Parrish in his autobiography) have made clear, Ford praised DeMille’s ability to make box-office hits, a thing quite apart from his artistry. Anyone who’s seen five minutes of Ford on his worst day and DeMille on his best would have to question what there was in DeMille’s artistry that Ford could credibly praise.
On the other hand, Ford made the ritual obeisances to the gods of the box office in hopes of lulling studio executives to sleep so that now and then he could get away with a picture of virtually no commercial potential whatever.
Devious guy, that Ford.
HAROLD MEYERSON
Los Angeles
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