Episode 39– Uncovering “The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille” With Filmmaker Peter Brosnan - Part 1

On this episode of Hollywood Obsessed, host Tony Miros has an riveting conversation with filmmaker, documentarian, historian, and modern-day ‘Indiana Jones’ Peter Brosnan who wrote, directed, and produced the fascinating documentary “The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille”. During their conversation, Peter tells Tony about going to film school at NYU, how he first heard about an ancient Egyptian city buried 150 miles north of Hollywood, the history of how Cecil B DeMille created and built the biggest movie set in history “City of The Pharaoh” for his 1923 epic silent film “The Ten Commandments”, going to the dunes of Guadalupe for the first time, finding the site and how he knew this discovery would make a great documentary. 

PETER BROSNAN

Peter Brosnan has been a journalist, filmmaker, screenwriter, psychotherapist, college professor and social worker.  In 1983, he co-discovered Cecil B DeMille’s “Lost City,” and began filming interviews with people who worked with DeMille on both versions (1923 and 1956) of “The Ten Commandments.".  His award-winning documentary, “The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille,” premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2016 and is now available on most streaming services.  

Now retired, Peter enjoys spending time with his family and planning new adventures.

His motto:  “Onward."

THE LOST CITY OF CECIL B DEMILLE

Buried beneath a windswept sand dune, just outside the small farming town of Guadalupe on the central California coast, there lies a vast, century-old slab of Hollywood history the site is known as “the lost city of Cecil B DeMille”.

In 1923, DeMille built the largest set in movie history (at the time) for his silent (and early Technicolor) epic, “The Ten Commandments”. It was called "The City of the Pharaoh." 

When filming was completed, DeMille ordered that the entire edifice be dismantled... and secretly buried. And there it lay, forgotten, for the next 60 years.

In 1982, Peter Brosnan was a 30-year-old freelance journalist and aspiring movie director, who shared a house in Los Angeles with his film-school buddy Bruce Cardozo. One evening, Bruce told him a scarcely believable story which he claimed to have read in the memoir of the late DeMille.  

The idea of finding the long lost set lit a fire in Brosnan’s heart. It also convinced him that the discovery of the set would make for an epic documentary. However he never could have guessed that his dream of uncovering the set would take nearly 30 years to be realized. But in 2012, with funding from an independent "angel," an archaeological excavation of the site finally took place. What that excavation found is at the exciting climax of "The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille.”

Because the filmmakers began their work in the 1980's, they were able to capture interviews with many of the people - actors, writers, chariot drivers and extras - who worked with DeMille in 1923. They also filmed interviews with people who worked on the second version of “The Ten Commandments” (the 1956 version with Charlton Heston).

The two versions of “The Ten Commandments” were like bookends on the remarkable career of Cecil B. DeMille. The documentary tells the story of these two films, interwoven with the story of the archaeological excavation of the site, as well as the incredible obstacles the project faced.

The Official “The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille” Website https://www.lostcitydemille.com/index.html

To purchase a copy of “The Lost City of Cecil B DeMille” go to - https://www.amazon.com/Lost-City-Cecil-B-DeMille/dp/B07765H5L5

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