Manslaughter (1922)

Manslaughter is a 1922 silent melodrama directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It is uncompromisingly a melodrama. I personally think that in order to understand DeMille as a director you have to watch at least a few of his silent movies. You need to watch a couple of his melodramas and a couple of his silent comedies. When you’ve done that you start to look at his later movies in a different light. You understand that far from being the bad director that many critics he was in fact a great director but he wasn’t the kind of director of whom most critics approve.

DeMille’s silent comedies in particular are a revelation. There’s no slapstick here. These are sophisticated comedies of manners. They also demonstrate DeMille’s fondness for outrageous fantasy sequences.

His melodramas are pure melodrama.

Most mainstream critics and most mainstream audiences tend to consider realism to be all-important. Movies should reflect life as it is. The only exceptions are movies that are overtly fantasy or science fiction and most mainstream critics and audiences get uncomfortable when fantasy or science fictional elements intrude in an otherwise realistic story.

I don’t think DeMille ever made a consciously realist movie in his life. When you watch a DeMille movie you enter a parallel universe. It’s the world of movie magic, which is essentially a fantasy world. You enter the world of melodrama, and melodrama is not a realist genre. Things that would be totally unacceptable in a realist movie, things like amazing coincidences, are perfectly acceptable in the world of melodrama. Melodrama is not trying to show us reality but rather a kind of heightened exaggerated version of reality. Melodrama obeys different conventions. Real life doesn’t have endings in which people get what they deserve (whether good or bad) but it’s a convention of melodrama that melodramas do end that way. If you can’t accept that then you won’t enjoy melodrama.


When you’ve seen DeMille’s earlier movies it’s much easier to appreciate later DeMille movies such as The Sign of the Cross, Samson and Delilah and The Greatest Show On Earth. Especially The Greatest Show On Earth, a much misunderstood movie. It’s vulgar, grandiose and overblown because it’s supposed to be. DeMille wasn’t trying to make a gritty social realist movie about the actual lives of circus performers (which is what a lot of critics would have liked). He was taking us into the totally unreal world of the circus, a world of make-believe and unreality and glamour in which everything is a show. DeMille totally loved that world. He revelled in it.

Which brings us to Manslaughter. Lydia Thorne (Leatrice Joy) is a wild girl. Basically she’s a flapper. She lives for pleasure. She spends her time in speakeasies and at wild parties. And she lives for speed. She has a sports car and she drives it fast and recklessly. When motorcycle cop Jim Drummond (Jack Mower) pulls her over for speeding she bribes him with a diamond bracelet. This will have consequences (this is melodrama after all).


Humourless moralising District Attorney Daniel O’Bannon (Thomas Meighan) is in love with Lydia but he disapproves of her. He disapproves of all these crazy kids today. He thinks that America in 1922 is just like ancient Rome - a world of decadence and debauchery. It must end badly. Pleasure is bad and if you pursue pleasure you will eventually pay a price. His musings on this subject trigger the movie’s first fantasy sequence, as Lydia in the guise of a wicked Roman empress presides over an orgy.

Lydia’s maid Evans (Lois Wilson), desperate for money to send her ailing son to a healthier climate, steals a diamond ring from her mistress. Lydia is initially outraged and wants Evans sent to prison but then changes her mind and decides to ask the judge for clemency. But Lydia is too drunk to turn up at court and Evans goes to prison. This subplot is important because it establishes that Lydia is irresponsible and spoilt but she isn’t cruel or malicious. She really did intend to save Evans from prison. This subplot will also have important later consequences (again remember that this is melodrama).

Lydia’s love of speed gets her into big trouble. She causes a traffic accident in which a traffic cop is killed. And yes, you guessed it, it’s the very same traffic cop she bribed earlier.

O’Bannon intends to send her to prison for a long stretch. He does this because he loves her and he thinks that a savage punishment will save her and turn her into the good girl he always believed her to be deep down.

These events will change the lives of all these characters (including Evans the maid), by means of lots more coincidences.

We’ll also get another ancient Rome fantasy sequence in which the barbarians invade and punish the Romans for their debauchery by killing the lot of them. O’Bannon likes this fantasy. Pleasure must be paid for.

The acting isn’t really in the excessively extravagant style that many people associate with silent films. It’s reasonably naturalistic. Which is a net positive since there’s enough melodrama in the story itself. Leatrice Joy is very good as Lydia. Thomas Meighan is OK as O’Bannon although O’Bannon is not an easy character to like.

DeMille came up with a very successful formula early on. He discovered that he could get away with all sorts of sex and sin in a movie if he added in the message that people who indulge in such things must pay for their pleasures. It was a formula that was later to be used countless times by exploitation film-makers. The kicker is, he always made the sex and sin seem like enormous fun and he always made the people who indulge in such things attractive and sexy. And he always made those who enforce the punishment seem humourless and boring. It’s almost as if the audience was supposed to come down on the side of sex and sin. Whether that was really DeMille’s intention can be debated but he certainly understood that it was the sex and sin that would have people lining up to buy tickets for his movies.

Manslaughter is typical DeMille outrageousness, with both the debauchery and the moralising melodrama being equally outrageous. And I haven’t yet mentioned the boxing match between two women and the all-female pogo stick race. Manslaughter is highly recommended because nobody made movies quite the way Cecil B. DeMille made them.

Manslaughter was released on DVD by Kino Video as a double feature paired with DeMille’s 1915 movie The Cheat.