Dynamite (1929) (Sound)

Please note: Purchase of a ticket to either the 4:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. screening of Dynamite allows admission to both.

"A drama that digs through the veneer of sex and silks to reach the heart!" - Motion Picture Herald

Full sound version.

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille

Thanks to the unique market conditions of the transition era, Dynamite was both Cecil B. DeMille’s first all-talkie sound feature as well as his last silent film. Packed with class conscious, never-quite-consummated scandal in DeMille’s inimitable style, the overheated story centers on Cynthia (Johnson), a pampered society girl who will lose her trust fund if she isn’t married and living with her husband by a certain date—unless he dies before, in which case she keeps the cash. With the deadline approaching and her current beau, a polo playing playboy (Nagel), tied up in a marriage to her best friend, Cynthia marries a hardscrabble coal miner on death row (Bickford). When Bickford’s miner is freed at the last minute, the honorable tough guy arrives at Cynthia’s penthouse to live up to his vows, turning her world upside down. Narrative differences between the versions are minor but stylistic differences abound, particularly in the handling of the story’s recurring song "How Am I To Know?" featuring lyrics by Dorothy Parker.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Jeanie MacPherson. Cinematographer:  Peverell Marley. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Conrad Nagel, Kay Johnson, Charles Bickford, Julia Faye, Joel McCrea.  

35mm, b/w, 128 min.