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The Twenties Never Roared Quite Like This--Thank Heavens!, Jan 15 2001
Cecil B. DeMille had a difficult time making the transition to sound, commencing with a series of three flops in a row at MGM--Dynamite in 1929, this film in 1930, and a remake of The Squaw Man in 1931. Afterwards he shrewdly returned to historical spectacle, his real forte, and made the hugely successful Sign of the Cross at Paramount. For Madame Satan, DeMille, trying to keep pace with current trends, went back to the bedroom dramas he had made in the early 1920s, castigating the debauched lifestyle of the upper classes while making it look lusciously appealing. In those steamy pre-Code days this might have seemed a good idea, but unfortunately, he had been away from this kind of material for far too long and appears to have lost his aptitude for it altogether, since Madame Satan has none of the fast pace, breezy humor, or racy dialogue of typical pre-Code hits like Night Nurse, Red Dust, or Platinum Blonde. Even worse, DeMille made an ill-advised venture into the musical genre with this picture--a mistake he wisely never repeated. For the first two thirds of Madame Satan the viewer has to wade through what resembles a ploddingly inept screen imitation of a second-rate bedroom farce loosely based upon Die Fledermaus, about a wealthy woman who tries to win back her philandering husband by attending a costume ball in disguise, before the movie begins to heat up with the notorious party aboard a dirigible--a sequence Leonard Maltin rightly calls an "eye-popper." But DeMille, true to form, cannot resist portentiously staging this silly bash as if it were God's warning to repent now before the Day of Judgment--read: the market crash of 1929--arrives to punish sinning America. The whole affair more resembles a palace orgy preceding the fall of Babylon than any party, however wild, that had taken place in the decade just ended--it's surprising that "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" does not appear in flashing lights over the heads of the revellers before an electrical storm intervenes to bring things back down to earth. The result is terribly ponderous if morbidly fascinating, a camp curiosity rather than an entertaining one. But there is one good reason for putting up with the film: the appearance of Lillian Roth, then at the height of her career, as the seductress Trixie. For anyone like myself who was born in the 1940s long after stars like Roth had vanished from the screen, it was always a question of whether they were genuine legends or just silver screen folklore, a question that could only be answered once studios began selling their libraries en bloc to television in the late 1950s. (Although quite a few early sound films were still in theatrical release at the beginning of the 1950s, pre-Code pictures always had to be resubmitted to the PCA for a new certificate when they were reissued, which simply eliminated productions like this one ab initio.) But Roth reveals herself as one of the memorably electric personalities of the early sound era and the moments when she shows up on screen are precious ones indeed. I should also add in conclusion that this video is part of the remarkable series of pre-Code movies called "Forbidden Hollywood" assembled by Leonard Maltin, and the picture quality, like that of most titles in the series, is excellent.
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Wacko, April 30 2004
Somehow this goofy movie seemed to invite a different kind of approach. So what follows is my highly subjective review of Madam Satan.Ten minutes into this supremely unfunny sex farce and I'm ready to chuck the cassette. First, there's Roland Young who's supposed to be an amusing drunk but is more like a ten day hangover, and second, there's Reginald Denny who's spent too many nights opening refrigerator doors because his face looks completely frozen. Then up pops this really zaftig little nuimber named Lillian Roth, who's also a dead-ringer for Shirley Temple's older sister, so I ease up on the remote. But another thirty minutes of Denny and Young and not even Roth's wiggling and warbling can compensate. Then just as I go for the off-button, somebody in Hollywood mixes up the reels and out of nowhere I'm looking at long lines of happy people singing and dancing and snaking their way into this big balloon, the likes of which no one has seen in 60 years. Must be a free meal, I figure, since this is 1930 and it is the Big Depression. But no, on the inside is an x-rated version of Flash Gordon in the royal court of Ming the Merciless, except these pagans are marching around to the clatter of trash can lids banging together like it's pick-up day on Mars. It's really wild, all the girls trying to see whose outfit is the weirdest and slinkiest, and dancing around like it's the last night of a fertility rite, while all the guys are going absolutely crazy. Right then I'm wishing I was born a lot sooner, especially when the mysterious Madam Satan appears, looking like the slithery serpent from the Garden of Eden. Right away I know she's one of the director's favorites because he keeps angling his camera toward her chest area. So what do I care that this second movie has no plot, what with these lunatics in charge, who knows what'll happen next. Then, just as I'm really into all the drunken revelry, up pops Denny and Young again, and I know the Hollywood bigshots aren't as smart as people say, otherwise these two lunkheads would not be allowed to ruin another few reels. But there's Young anyway, yukking it up like he's really funny, and there's Denny still trying to get his face unstuck. And, sure enough, there's Roth, looking as cute and dimpled as ever, except this time they've stuck weird feathers in her at all angles like she's been plucked by a blind guy. But she doesn't care, because she keeps on singing her little heart out and I think I'm in love. Anyway, everyone knows that with all this sinning going on and a character like Madam Satan in charge, the wrath of God can't be far behind. And sure enough, just as they auction off the girl with six arms, down comes this bolt of lightning and there goes the balloon spinning up toward the heavens. But then God gets his bearings back, and back down goes the balloon, with all the pagans screaming and yelling and becoming instant converts. I don't want to give away the ending, except to say miracles do happen, since the outside of this balloon suddenly sprouts more parachute drops than the jump schools at 82nd Airborne. Ordinarily, I would figure I dreamed all this weird stuff, but even with an empty 12-pack my dreams are never, never this weird. I know there is a moral to this movie, which must be that sin shouldn't look like too much fun, otherwise the killjoys and fussbudgets among us will make sure movies show only good things like twin-beds, closed-mouth kissing, and dreary couples named Rock and Doris. And that will be the end of really wacko movies like this one.
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BIZARRE EARLY TALKIE., Jul 14 2002
This bizarre hodgepodge directed by Cecil B. DeMille has to been seen to be believed! A woman diguises herself as an exotic seductress in order to win her roving husband back, and the story takes place during an extravagant costume ball - aboard a dirigible....There are lots of songs and dances (even a ballet) in the dirigible scenes and Lillian Roth is memorable as the energetic, buxom and dimpled showgirl Trixie. Years later, she would stop boozing, repent and write I'LL CRY TOMORROW...Kay Johnson plays the elusively exotic title role, and Reginald Denny - her hubby - literally jumps to safety - in a parachute - into a Central Park Reservoir - after the blimp explodes!!... The famous climax -i.e. when the airship blows up - comes so late in the picture that you're too exhausted to enjoy the unique lunacy of it all. With Roland Young and the immortal (kidding) Martha Sleeper. Written for the screen by Jeanie MacPherson, this is a good example of DeMille's experimental insanity in the early talkie era.
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