Satan Met a Lady

Boy, once Warner Brothers bought a property, they did everything but serve it for dinner. 1936's "Satan Met a Lady" is yet another version of "The Maltese Falcon," which was finally given the classic touch by John Huston in 1941. This particular version is out of control but manages to be a lot of fun at the same time.

This time Sam Spade is named Shane, and he's played by '30s star Warren William. William was a tall, handsome man with sharp features and a refined speaking voice - by this time, he was the Warners version of William Powell, though he had started his career as an unsympathetic, precode villain. A more extroverted performer, he excelled at the William Powell-type vehicles. He even took over for Powell as Philo Vance. William was the movie Perry Mason, and if you think this is a wild "Maltese Falcon," you should see what was done to Perry before the TV series. Put it this way - Della Street wore diamonds.

In this version, the falcon is the Horn of Roland, a trumpet stuffed with jewels, and it's being sought by a young, pretty Bette Davis in the Bebe Daniels-Astor role, and now the Sydney Greenstreet character has had a sex change in the form of Madame Barrabas (Alison Skipworth). Though there's no doubt Barrabas a ruthless character. and the usual people have been murdered by the usual people, this version is pretty much played for laughs. It moves faster than the Cortez version, and while Cortez played Spade as a delightful rogue, William has a ball, laughing at the whole thing as he collects money from everyone. In the Cortez version, Spade had some feeling for Ms. Wonderly (Bebe Daniels); here, William clearly enjoys playing the field and never takes the Davis character seriously. Shane's secretary in "Satan Met a Lady" is played by Marie Wilson, whose part is quite large. She's very funny. Davis is okay, but her sincerity isn't believable - at this point in her career, she's still a little stagey.

The very tongue-in-cheek William runs this show, which is done in the style of "The Thin Man." Though it was a bomb when it was released, today it's of interest for Davis, its handling of the material, and also as a chance to see William, who died in 1948, in top form. After this film, he went into character roles.

Recommended.

It had never previously occurred to me that the convoluted plot of 'The Maltese Falcon' was verging on that of a farce; but in fact this reinterpretation fits with surprising success throughout most of the action of the film...

The gulf between this version of the story and the darker wartime 'Falcon' of 1941 is a jolting one, but when it is compared to the film of which it is actually a remake -- Warner Brothers' 1931 'Maltese Falcon' -- the relationship between the earlier two becomes obvious. Warren William's Ted Shane, with his womanising touch and his insolent grin, has far more in common with Ricardo Cortez' silent-style Sam Spade than with Bogart's noir version (and, to be honest, with the 'blond Satan' of Hammett's original novel).

William is well cast here as the amoral private eye playing all sides off against one another: in this film, he comes across as being in control of the situation all along, tricking information out of the gentleman crook Travers, disarming the impotent but vindictive Kenneth and driving a hard bargain with Madame Barabbas for a treasure he knows to be without value. When he induces Valerie to confess her guilt in the railway carriage, I was all but expecting him to produce a concealed police officer at the appropriate moment to bear witness! Despite the fact that everyone from his former lover to his own secretary seems to take it for granted, despite his assurances, that it was he who murdered his partner, Ted Shane -- as befits the hero of a light-hearted farce -- never leaves us in any doubt that he is destined to come out on top.

Bette Davis, despite her top billing, has relatively little to do here and demonstrates an all too apparent lack of interest. Bebe Daniels, in the equivalent 1931 part, is both more alluring and more obviously faking it; her scenes with Sam Spade often have more comedy, as her character rolls out her full seductive armoury against a complacent male target, than Davis' scenes underplayed here in what is intended to be a farce. I found the minor role of the scatty little secretary Murgatroyd -- who, in this version ends up with the hero for the requisite happy ending! -- to be the more memorable one.

But I'm afraid the ending was my main difficulty with the reinterpretation of this plot in comic vein. The mix-ups, multiple women and seemingly pointless events of the start are almost intrinsically amusing, and indeed are already played as such in the 1931 'Maltese Falcon'. The final scenes, however, with their betrayals, dirty dealing and killings for a fortune that never was, have a much more nihilistic tone, and the 'siege' sequence of the earlier version, where all the characters are locked in a room together by mutual suspicion until the morning comes, holds an edge of explosive threat. Staging the equivalent sequence on the docks under a fire-hose downpour, with Shane brandishing the valuables literally just above the villains' noses and getting paid for his trouble rather than coshed for the loot, doesn't serve to raise a laugh... but does rob the scene of most of its effectiveness.

Likewise, Valerie's admission of murder and her railing at Shane after he hands her over to the police are not only not funny -- although at least in the latter case, they're clearly intended that way -- but they have no emotional impact either. The result was an unsatisfactory resolution without any resonance to speak of; and Valerie's parting shot, while being dragged off to pay the penalty for murder, where she predicts for Shane the dire fate of... marriage, falls flat as almost embarrassingly inappropriate.

'Satan Met a Lady' actually starts off by looking quite promising and at the outset is genuinely funny: but a lacklustre part for the leading lady, plus a growing incongruity between the hard-boiled subject matter and its delivery, serve to undermine this favourable first impression. I enjoyed Warren William's performance, but in the end I felt the film didn't really work.

Everyone hates this movie. Bette Davis called it the worst movie she was ever in. I don't think it's a great piece of film making, just another Warner Brothers B remake of a durable property, THE MALTESE FALCON, competently directed by William Dieterle as a comedy.

The problem is that people can't view it that way. The next remake was a classic, made John Huston a leading director and Bogart an actual star. The first version spent many years in the shadows, until its revival on TCM showed it to be a solid pre-Code with a real sense of style. Warners remade THE BUTTER AND EGG MAN five times officially, three or four more times unofficially, and they'd probably still be reviving it if Mel Brooks hadn't stolen it for The Producers. As for Miss Davis' comments, she was a great dramatic artist, but think of her comedies and try not to retch.

But everyone else in this version is pretty good: Warren William, playing a barely Code-compliant version of his pre-code rotter; Arthur Treacher ripping up William's apartment and playing ring toss with lampshades; Alison Skipworth, amiable and bigger than life; and best of all, Marie Wilson. How did they get this one past the Hays office? Did they borrow Preston Sturges' compromising photos of Joe Breen?

It is, as I said, not a great movie like the Bogart version, or a fine one like the Ricardo Cortez version. It is, however, a perfectly decent and amusing comedy version of a story about everyone double-crossing everyone else. Except for Miss Davis.

I can practically recite "The Maltese Falcon" by heart, so I was intrigued by this alternate filming. I put the tape in and immediately went "What the. . . ." Then I picked up the box and saw the word "comedy." so I sat down and watched it on its own terms. It's a hoot. the trick is to never really think about the great Bogart version and just think of it as a send-up of the genre. It is much better this way. I especially the ditsy blonde secretary, and the bumbling gunsel.

Surprise! Satan Met a Lady is an easy breezy detective dramedy VERY LOOSELY based on the Dashiell Hammett Book, The Maltese Falcon. This book had been adapted for the film before (in 1931) and, more famously, after (1941), This version made its way to the silver screen in 1936, with Bette Davis in rare form in a comedic role. Warren William, who could be as suave as the similar and better known actor William Powell, plays it fast and loose as a detective out to settle a mystery-and maybe find himself very rich. This version of the Hammett tale has been sadly underrated due to the fact that many of its naysayers were suffering under a misapprehension concerning the tenor of the film. In their attempt to set it under the same microscope as its more famous remakes and premakes, many of the critics overlooked the simple truth that this is a light, comic bit of film fluff concocted to entertain a mid-Depression Era audience with its confection of comedy, mystery, and romance. It has none of the nihilistic brooding of the original book, nor the leering innuendo or virtuoso performances of the two other films. What it does provide is a diverting pastiche of one liners and clever story lines that keep its audience on the edge of their seat. Even if they're almost falling out of their seats for laughter, there's always a reason for the viewers to use (and not lose) their heads. I'd like to see most movies do that today (and at 76 minutes.)

The casting of the principal stars is first rate. There's always a glint of a coiled cobra in Warren Willliam's silver-tongued shamus. But most of the time he keeps his gun in his pocket and his tongue in his cheek. Even his name is a parody of the nickname for a detective. Bette Davis matches him line by line and sets the movie at its pace. she was still a young actress and everything she says and does is as real and as fresh as homebaked bread. Allison Skipworth makes a charming but sinister villianess. Arthur Treacher (hilarious as a thief with manners) and portly Porter Hall round off this mad quad of moneygrubbers all showing that not only is the love of money the root of all evil, it can also be very, very, funny. Like Arsenic and Old Lace and Beat The Devil, Satan Met a lady is one movie that was ahead of its time and, after more than 65 years, is still got plenty of zest and zing. A Thumbs up for Satan Met a Lady.