The Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes have been the backdrop to a number of movies over the years. Their sands have yielded to the footsteps of movie stars and production crews, all drawn by a quality that makes the rolling horizons nondescript enough to be anything from a deserted island to an Egyptian desert.
And to this day, the dunes still cover the set of one the most infamous films made there: Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments.
Santa Maria native Robert Hammond thinks the dunes still have some star quality left in them. He’s considering them as a location for his film about DeMille, the very director who left his work buried in the sands after he finished filming.
Hammond’s movie, The DeMille Conspiracy, follows an FBI agent investigating a church bombing and series of murders when he uncovers the secret memoirs of the legendary director. The discovery draws him into a web of intrigue and turns him into a hunted man.
Hammond described the movie as a cross between Da Vinci Code and Die Hard, full of action, adventure, and an unpredictable conclusion.
While still in pre-production, Hammond is considering using the dunes in some scenes, as well as the Santa Maria Inn, which is where some of the crew stayed while filming The Ten Commandments. Other planned shoots include the DeMille-Lasky Barn, which houses the Hollywood Heritage Museum and is the original studio where Hollywood began. DeMille—along with associates Jesse Lasky and Sam Goldwyn—began making movies there in 1913. The barn later expanded into what’s now Paramount Studios.
Hammond grew up in Santa Maria—his father is a retired physician still living here—before authoring eight books. He’s currently working on the novel and screenplay adaptation of C.B. DeMille: The Greatest Showman on Earth, about DeMille’s life and work.
“I always thought it would be great to make a movie here if I could,” Hammond said. “This would be the perfect movie.”
Hammond envisions Denzel Washington or Will Smith as the investigator.
He has always had a fascination with DeMille’s career. The director is known today mostly for his biblical epics, but in his day he was also noted for his westerns, his films about American history, and his witty social comedies. Of the 70 films he personally produced, all but six were profitable. With that kind of track record, Hammond said, DeMille has been underrated in a lot of ways.
“Any time there’s a big, over-the-top director—he has been used as sort of the stereotype of a director, with the boots and the bull horn and riding crop, but he created Hollywood,” Hammond said.
The writer explained that DeMille went against conventional thinking when most filmmakers believed California wasn’t a good place to make movies. His forward thinking not only showed that movies could be made in the Golden State, but paved the way for a little city in the south to become the movie-making capital of the world.
“At the time, the thought was, ‘You can’t make movies in California! It’s nothing but orange groves and nothing else!’” Hammond said. “But he showed them wrong.”
While Hammond works on getting his project going, he remains committed to a film that will excite audiences while paying tribute to the man who inspired him.
“DeMille really needs to be honored, and it’s really my ultimate purpose to honor him,” he said.
Tell Arts Editor Shelly Cone what her ultimate purpose is at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 9-16, 2009.