The idea to salvage the wheat from the chaff of one of Hollywood's $2,000,000 historic epics came to Jester when he was working as art director, research expert and technical adviser to Cecil B. De Mille. For years Jester had been watching pictures like "Cleopatra" and "The Crusades" go in and out of production, crammed with authentic historical background, all of which was forgotten once the films were withdrawn from release.
He convinced De Mille and the Paramount front office that goodwill would ensue if he were permitted to work out a documentary on the general subject of the West based on Cecil B. De Mille's "The Plainsman." He waited until the picture was completed, worked out a script entitled "Spirit of the Plains" on the basis of available film footage, shot a number of special sequences in the same sets and backgrounds that De Mille himself had used, based on his own script, Paramount released "Spirit of the Plains" in 16mm. form free to schools, colleges and other organizations, Jester fought hard to keep the pubplicity office and trailer department rom injecting a title urging people o "Go to Your Nearest Paramount Picture" and won. Later his oneced subject was offered for sale at 350, and a number of schools made the purchase.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.