This is not really a hard question to answer, but one must understand De Mille and the nature of his politics. De Mille has a poor reputation for many of the same reasons that Elia Kazan was treated so poorly at the Oscars a few years ago by so many in Hollywood and the same reasons why Robert Taylor's name was removed from a building on the old MGM lot.
De Mille was anti-unionist, anti-communist, conservative, Republican; profoundly religious the other things that tend to destroy one's reputation in Hollywood. In the 1940's De Mille was forced out of the host position of Lux Radio Theatre because he refused to join the union of AFRA, (now Aftra).
What is often forgotten about De Mille is that he was, along with Samuel Goldfish, and Jesse L. Lasky, one of the founders of Paramount and in the early days of that studio, he was the creative force. He not only directed and produced many of the company's films, but also was in control of the company's entire output, writing scripts and directing sequences in films assigned to other directors. De Mille is often credited as the first man to film (the 1914 Squaw Man) in Hollywood. He did more than any other man to make Hollywood the greatest film center of the World. He handled every genre in film and even invented some that never existed before.
In the mid 20's, De Mille sold his shares in Paramount and joined MGM briefly where he made some of his worst films such as the eccentric Madame Satan.
De Mille doesn't deserve the poor reputation that he has. He was a cut above most of his competitors in narrative skills, pacing of action, in gauging public tastes and anticipating the changing moods of the nation. He developed some of Hollywood's brightest and most famous stars. He was a master storyteller and his films almost always entertained. But in Hollywood, as the truely blacklisted Kazan, Adolph Menjou and William Dmytryk found, your reputation is often judged on your politics and not by your product.
