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Cecil B. DeMille, pioneer motion picture producer, termed the cinema the "literature of the future" in a speech on "My Twenty-Five Years in The Movies" last night in the New Lecture Hall.
Before more than 1000 undergraduates and suscribers to the Film Society, sponsors of DeMille's appearance, the stocky, well-spoken director of "epics" said that films will be the literature of tomorrow because they "save time."
Pictures Teach Quicker
"The mind absorbs more quickly what is thrown on a screen than what the individual reads in the little red school book," DeMille said.
He admitted, however, that the historical works turned out by Hollywood are not always the acme of accuracy, since action covering a span of years is often telescoped into a week or so of movie action.
"But that's dramatic technique," he said.
He maintained at the same time that the intensive historical research necessary for an "epic" often brought to light historical data not included in the ordinary history text.
The motion picture industry is in need of well-trained college men today, he said in commenting on the Hollywood front.
But it does not want young men as stars, he went on to say. For he pointed out, "The star is a little bit of tinsel on top of the Christmas tree."
Mr. DeMille presented T. Edward Ross '38, president of the Film Society, with a bound volume of the scenario he used in "The Buccaneer."
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