ABSTRACT
In 1922, after the critics panned his latest film, Adam’s Rib, Cecil B. DeMille made an unusual decision: to ask his audiences to come up with an idea for his next film. Prizes were sponsored by The Los Angeles Times; first prize was $1,000. DeMille commented:
The letters came from men and women of every station, creed, and trade. They ranged in subject matter from the most sacred to the most profane, and in value from the most ridiculous to the sublime. I was struck by the number that suggested a religious theme; and there was one that, for both subject matter and power of expression, kept surviving every winnowing process devised by the editors and kept coming back again and again to my mind. It was not from a professional writer. It was from a manufacturer of lubricating oil in Lansing, Michigan. His name was F. C. Nelson, and this is the beginning of the one page he wrote: “You cannot break the Ten Commandments – they will break you.”1
