Madam Satan (1930)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) While the title and the Pre-Code date may get you salivating, Madam Satan proves to be weirder and yet more disappointing than you may expect. For one thing, it’s a Cecil B. DeMille musical comedy, which is an odd-enough combination to make one intrigued and suspicious—DeMille was never known as a particularly light-hearted director, so how would he fare on an early sound-era musical comedy? Well, it turns out that he goes for the whole maximalist approach even there—while the film starts amiably enough in the 1930 upper-crust Manhattan milieu, it ends with people parachuting out of a lightning-struck zeppelin, which is weird enough by itself and (amusingly enough) an intrusion of big-budget spectacle in a genre that can usually dispense with such showcase sequences. The film is, at least, on firmer ground when it comes to plotting—much of it revolves around a mousy woman (Kay Johnson) reinventing herself as a mysterious outspoken vamp to regain the affection of her wayward husband. There’s the Pre-Code premise right there, and DeMille’s maximalist execution goes for scantily-dressed actresses, suggestive dialogue and loose morals aplenty. Things get better once you see the film evolve from bedroom comedy to musical numbers to disaster film—it’s a memorable film all right. The problem is that while the set-pieces may feel like a lot of fun, their assembly is lacking: the lulls are too long, the dialogue inconsistent, the songs insipid and the transition between the various genres is clunky. It’s also a bit hypocritical in faking outrage while getting salacious at the same time—other films of the era would be far more aware and aligned with their own material. (It would also be more enjoyable if we liked both of the married characters, but the male lead is given a huge in-universe pass on what would be unforgivable behaviour for roughly 90 of the 92 years since then.)  While Madam Satan was a flop at the time of its release (not helped along by a glut of then-remarkable musical comedies this early in the sound era), it has aged quite well as a period piece more distinct than most other 1930 films. The crashing Zeppelin? Try fitting that in a musical comedy at any time since then. But while you can sense Madam Satan’s potential—if only for the costume budget—the result only meets a fraction of what could have been done. DeMille wisely went to paternalistic disaster films afterwards, leaving this rather endearing oddity in his wake.