Madame Satã

When I first saw "Madam Satan," on Turner Classic Movies, Robert Osborne said it might be the strangest movie ever made by the great director Cecil B. DeMille. I tend to agree with him. This was one of three films he had made at MGM, during the only time he was away from Paramount. None of the three films were apparently very good. Not only was DeMille frustrated by studio chief Louis B. Mayer was disappointed and infuriated; little wonder that DeMille and Mayer soon parted company.

In any case, "Madam Satan" is rather slow-moving, clumsy, and awkward, much as is the case with early sound films. It never makes up its mind either as it delves into melodrama, comedy, music, and even a little horror. Nevertheless, it has some garish, spectacular moments. The mechanical ballet on the moored dirigible is rather fascinating and certainly quite peculiar. It is the height of Hollywood kitsch. The best sequence is when the dirigible is struck by lightning during a ferocious thunderstorm and everyone on the airship must parachute to safety.

We will always wonder what DeMille had in mind when he made the film. It was certainly risqué and daring for its time, but it actually didn't do very well at the box office and the critics were puzzled by it. It remains today as a curiosity at best.

This is a totally bizarre amalgam of at least three different films: a wisecracking sex-comedy, an unsuccessful operetta, and a bedroom-hopping farce. Add into that mix 'disaster movie' and 'fashion parade', and you get a film that's worth seeing just for its jaw-dropping novelty value alone.

It's actually pretty good: most of the humour is intentional, and some of the rest of it may well be. (I'm not sure quite how seriously the film takes itself: I got the impression that the heroine is pretty much in the know about what is going on, for example, and is simply playing innocent when it suits her... either to get the information she's after, or merely in order to watch her misbehaving husband squirm.) Farce isn't my thing, but those scenes are pretty slickly done, while a lot of the risqué dialogue sparkles.

Sadly the film suffers from primitive sound recording techniques, to the extent that most of the lyrics of the musical sections are incomprehensible -- not too much of a problem for the stand-alone numbers, but a big issue for the ensemble songs that are supposed to drive the later part of the plot. A lot of the verbal punchlines to the visual jokes at the masquerade disappeared into the background fuzz, as well: for example, I still don't know what on earth Bob's costume was supposed to be, because I missed the announcement as he entered.

As a musical "Madam Satan" is not very successful: it's a story of missed opportunities (Cole Porter, Rudolf Friml, Oscar Hammerstein II, Sigmund Romberg and even Albert Ketelbey of "In a Monastery Garden" fame were all considered to write the musical numbers at one time or another, as were Jeanette MacDonald and Gloria Swanson for the lead). The operetta numbers are unmemorable -- the 'popular' numbers from Jack King and Elsie Janis have worn better in performance style, although you still won't find yourself whistling them as you leave.

There are lengthy ballet/costume sequences in the second half of the film that appear to be basically the equivalent of the gratuitous fashion parade colour reels that crop up in various 1930s films -- simply inserted into the story as an excuse to show off the spectacle. They are staggeringly extravagant, but to my taste the display dragged a bit after a while. (Watching all the revellers subsequently attempt to don parachute harnesses on top of these costumes, however, tends to confirm me in my suspicion that the film really doesn't take itself seriously!) And we learn, to my amazement at least, that on a dirigible the parachutes are not actually packed on the wearer's back but attached to casings in the hull itself -- no wonder the harnesses look weirdly skeletal. You can't simply jump free wearing a parachute: you have to be clipped on first...

The parachute sequence is another piece of disaster-comedy that has to be seen to be believed. On the whole I'd say that the film is at least 60% successful: MGM might have done better if they had ditched the musical elements altogether, since this is probably the weakest strand and the box office was saturated by musicals at this point, and gone flat out for shock value. It's certainly worth seeing for sheer bizarreness.

"Madame Satan" is one of those movies that is not sure what it is but is having a grand time trying to figure it out. Part bedroom farce (where in pre code days couples sleep in the same bed), romantic comedy, musical and at its climax a disaster film. Its basic plot follows the misadventures of a married couple as they try to relight the spark in their marriage. The climax is a costume ball aboard a zeppelin (the musical production numbers here are pretty spectacular) that eventually ends in the zeppelin's crash in a storm. The effects are all done with miniatures and they really are quite impressive. The cast , especially Roland Young, are quite good though at times hesitant. You get the impression that in this early talkie the actors are not yet comfortable with sound but that is a minor quibble. All in all it is a fun over the top film that rarely has a dull moment.

Here is a film which defies catagorizing. It is, at once, a bedroom farce, a musical, a comedy and a disaster film. The musical end of it is pretty good, with everyone using their own voices. Kay Johnson, in the name role, does a pretty good job as the good woman wronged by an oaf of a husband. The legendary Lillian Roth is super as Trixie. She hits just the right note as the tough-as-nails showgirl who has designs on Reginald Denny. The film really picks up when we get to the masquerade party aboard the Zepplin. This was reportedly filmed in two-color Technicolor, but released in black-and-white, presumably due to the fact that musical pictures had gone out of favor by late 1930, and MGM was trying to cut it's potential losses by not paying up to print the sequences in color. The Adrian costumes are positively jaw-dropping. The drag queens could get some great ideas by studying these. (The gorgeous creation worn by Kay Johnson is in the Museum of Modern Art in NY). In all, this is a film which, despite it's obvious flaws, makes for an unforgettable viewing experience. It is a unique film even by the standards of the great DeMille.

There are some directors who failed and faltered in the sound revolution. There are others who made a success of the new form and were even revitalised by it. Cecil B. DeMille is perhaps in a league of his own, who with Madam Satan created a work suffering from all the awkwardness of the worst early talkies, and yet one gloriously weird and wonderful in a way that only his pictures could be.

It's true; Madam Satan is incredibly stilted and static in its construction. I'm not referring to the anchored camera – DeMille didn't really rely on camera movement anyway. But like many early talkies it places too much importance on dialogue, and is structured like a stage play with very long and very wordy scenes. The sound recording is appalling and sometimes we can hear dialogue when characters are in long shot, which seems very unnatural. Like most early musicals the numbers are spoiled by indecipherable operatic vocals.

But never fear! Madam Satan was scripted by the delightfully barmy Jeanie Macpherson. What's more we find DeMille, ever with his finger to the wind, putting his own grandiose and unashamedly smutty spin on the bedroom-comedy musical genre that was making such a splash at his old stomping ground, Paramount. The result is one of the most unintentionally surreal pictures I have ever seen. We begin with some Lubitsch-esque bed-hopping comedy scenes, sprinkled with a few songs. We then decamp to a fancy-dress party on board a Zeppelin (why not?) for an extended musical sequence, which looks like the result of Fritz Lang hiring Busby Berkeley to direct a scene in Metropolis. Just as the characters' passions start to run away with them, it suddenly turns into a disaster movie – a bit of a DeMille-Macpherson trademark, that.

Madam Satan is also special in that it is perhaps the only DeMille comedy which is actually rather funny. The occasionally witty dialogue was probably Gladys Unger's contribution to the screenplay, but what really makes it work is the excellent comic timing and rapport of Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth and Roland Young. In comparison to these three very satisfying cast members, leading lady Kay Johnson seems rather bland, and has "poor-man's Jeanette MacDonald" written all over her.

Most of the songs are by Herbert Stothart, who would soon rise to become MGM's in-house composer. Musically they are fairly forgettable, although it's interesting how they are used to define character and drive the plot forward in a way that later became standard but was by no means a given in the very earliest musicals. DeMille, always a very rhythmic director, shoots some great dance numbers, and shows great musical sensitivity for the "All I Know Is You're in My Arms" number, tracking along with the silhouetted dancers, and putting in a wonderful slow tilt when they are still, corresponding to the swell in the music. It's a shame this was his only musical.

Madam Satan has got to be one of the weirdest film experiences I have ever had, and after my first viewing I wasn't quite sure if perhaps I dreamt it. It was (sniff) the last significant contribution to a DeMille picture by Jeanie Macpherson, and while all his work after this was filled with adventure and spectacle, they were missing a certain something that only she could bring. Madam Satan is however an appropriately daffy swansong – a boozy, art-deco, all-talking, all-dancing concotion that is worth watching for its sheer oddness.