Satan Met a Lady

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.

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.

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.

Dash Hammett wasn't a very good writer, but he was something of a genius in creating characters that sell. Films with his characters were only successful when heavily filtered through the inventive context of a filmmaker.

Hammett hated it, this messing with his tone. But the original "Falcon" was something of a disaster. Someone had the idea (possibly Van Dyke) of making the Thin Man as a comedy. It was a huge success and has in retrospect been one of the most influential films of the era. So it only made sense for us to see this similar reworking of "Falcon" shortly after the Thin Man's success.

But Van Dyke had a sense of timing and the ability to integrate that rhythm into the whole long form. This poor fellow has no such sense, so the humor is all over the place, each character driving their own bus.

So when you watch it, you have to decide which character to align your perspective with. Though I cannot recommend the picture, if you do see it, I do recommend you become the ditsy blond secretary (who cannot even spell her own name).

She's every bit capable of carrying this movie, where the detective cannot.

I don't suppose she invented the ditz, but it was this girl, here a nineteen year old Marie Wilson who combined a Betty Boop "whoop" to become the sexually available, innocent but hungry, absolutely sweet but terminally dumb blond. Its great fun watching her mouth, a great mouth, one of the era's great mouths managed by an unappreciated master.

The end of the movie is supposed to be something of a tragedy as the Bette Davis character is lost. But because our detective (something of a breezy dolt) has this ready girl to fall back on, the effect is lost.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Satan Met a Lady is a fascinating adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel The Maltese Falcon into an unusual mixture of mystery and comedy and actually has several funny moments but veers so far from the source material that its effect is dissipated. In comparison to some recent comedy thrillers the film could be seen as ahead of its time. If John Huston had never made the quintessential Film Noir adaption of Hammet's novel The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart in the lead, Satan Met a Lady may have gained an entirely different stature.

The film does have some funny moments as when Valerie Purvis catches Shayne searching her room and pulls a gun on him with the line "Do you mind very much, Mr. Shayne, taking off your hat in the presence of a lady with a gun?" There is also some very funny stuff with Warren William playing against Arthur Treacher's British character Anthony Travers. When Travers says he'll give Shayne 500 dollars for information and hands him a bill, the detective walks over to a lamp inspects the bill and summarily tears it up, getting a gentlemanly response from the Brit in an "Sorry" as he hands him another bill which the private dick inspects and pockets- it's a bit of visual business that is perfectly timed by the actors.