Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

People are voting emotionally.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

SYNOPSIS: A variant on Ferenc Molnar's 1924 play, "The Guardsman", this is DeMille's only musical and one of the few films he produced which failed to make a substantial profit. In fact, this one made a loss. Despite this initial set-back, M-G-M had such intrinsic faith in the story idea, that it was filmed again as The Guardsman (1931), The Chocolate Soldier (1941), and Two-Faced Woman (1941) — yes, twice in the same year!COMMENT: Despite a few bright comebacks from Roland Young, the first half of this movie — particularly everything that's set in the Brooks' demesne — is pretty terrible. Once the ultra-fetching Lillian Roth comes on, audience interest does perk up somewhat; but it's not until the zeppelin scenes that the movie really reaches its DeMillean stride. The director is at his peak of richly campy bad taste, with dozens of svelte extras parading around in Adrian costumes that have to be seen to be believed. The music hots up commensurately and it all ends in typical DeMille fashion with a spectacular break-up of the zeppelin and the parachuting of hundreds of weirdly-dressed masqueraders to earth.Once on board the zeppelin, the picture picks up not only pictorially, but in all departments. True, Kay Johnson overdoes the Mae West impersonating Mae West in Every Day's a Holiday impersonation (actually it's the other way around, as the West picture wasn't made until 1938), complete with thick French accent and giddy (rather than sexy)mannerisms, but the other players loosen up considerably, even including stiff-as-a-board Reginald Denny. The lovely Lillian Roth seems even more desirable, whilst Roland Young is in his element with wonderfully dead-pan delivery of such devilishly witty lines as "You can't take a married man to hell."It's the zep scenes too that are so thickly encrusted with cultishly 1930s songs and musical numbers, including LeRoy Prinz's fantastically-staged Electricity number — see the guy had talent after all, despite all that Jimmy Cagney and I said to the contrary. He just lost that visual inventiveness somewhere along the way in his journey from M-G-M to Paramount to Warner Bros. We also loved Lillian Roth's "Lowdown". In her first rendition, she's joined by the talented Edward Prinz as well as composer Jack King.Abetting the glamorously bizarre Adrian costumes are the typically super-lavish DeMille sets, designed here by the creative duo of Cedric Gibbons and art deco specialist Mitchell Leisen, surely the last word in flapper-era elegance.Contrary to its slow and uncertain, bored and boring, mistimed and mistreated start, the end of the picture is a triumph of clever plotting and playing, with Roland Young hobbling to a wonderful exit for a most pleasing fade-out. This picture is definitely one for the books — scaling from the unbelievably bad to the dazzlingly enjoyable, its initial script/acting/directing rags miraculously transformed to ditto riches.

The strangest thing in this film might be the morality of the plot. Folks today seem to think that films of the 30s were all stodgy and prudish. Well, this might be true of movies made AFTER mid-1934 when a toughened Production Code was adopted by the studios. But, before that, films were perhaps even wilder than they are today. Stuff like nudity, adultery, abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex and even bestiality were to be found in many of the Hollywood films. In fact, the films were becoming so family-unfriendly, that people stopped attending pictures and the studios started to worry about not surviving the Depression. So, in an effort spurred on far more by economics than morality, Hollywood adopted this very draconian code. Now, in the 'cleaned up Hollywood', you had wholesomeness and virtue...and it became just a bit boring at times. Now I LOVE films of the 1934-1950 era--but occasionally the morality in them seems silly--married couples weren't allowed to be in bed together at the same time, evil was ALWAYS punished by the end of the film (wow...wouldn't it be nice if real life was that way!) and women definitely did NOT enjoy sex...at least not decent women! And, as for the indecent women, as I said, in the end, evil is ALWAYS punished! But none of these Post-Code rules apply to films like "Madam Satan".This Cecil B. DeMille* film begins with a lovely wife, Angela (Kay Johnson) waiting and waiting for her no-good husband, Bob (Reginald Denny) to return home. However, the guy has been out whooping it up with his friend--drinking (this is during Prohibition, by the way) and chasing other women. Surprisingly, Angela is rather good-natured about it--and seems to accept the age-old notion that 'boys will be boys'. However, Bob is a real jerk. Not only isn't he apologetic but blames Angela for being too boring. In fact, he later announces that he's leaving, as his mistress is much more of a woman than Angela will ever be! At this point you'd assume Angela would be ready to kill or divorce this worm--this WOULD be the case in the Post-Code world. Instead, after getting over her initial hurt and shock, she's decided to cook up a plan to get him back! After all, in this era, men must be excused their little...peccadilloes (a nice word used at the time to cover a multitude of sins...but mostly adultery).What exactly is the plan? Well, it all unfolds during an insane society costume party--the most bizarre party EVER thrown on this planet--and not just because of its locale but because of the costumes and song and dance numbers! A bunch of rich philanderers rent out a zeppelin (you know, one of those massive airships like the Hindenburg) and invite all their mistresses for a rip-roaring good time. Naturally Bob and his floozy are there. However, just before this woman is crowned the Belle of the Ball, in steps Madam Satan--a very mysterious masked woman of the world. And Madam Satan is NOT there to make new friends or go for a zeppelin ride...nope. She's there to screw Bob...and she's not very subtle about it! Using her thick foreign accent, she vamps Bob and announces 'who wants to go to Hell with Madam Satan?'. Well, obviously Bob does, and he pursues this mystery woman like a dog chasing after a pork chop! Eventually, Bob discovers who this mystery woman is that he so wants to....um...get to know better. But, before he can deal with this, the zeppelin breaks loose from its mooring mast and goes careening through the clouds! Then, the costumed party-goers and crew jump from the airship and parachute to the ground...with a few comical (and one mildly racist) scenes as the folks land.Does this sound completely crazy? Of course. But the craziest part are the costumes and sets. It must have cost a fortune to make the film and this was at the worst part of the Depression!! Just think of the millions of folks out of work and a film about Madam Satan vamping a rich no-goodnick like Bob! Crazy...but almost impossible to stop watching! If you want to see it, you can get a copy from Amazon, Turner Classic Movies' website or perhaps they'll show it again on TCM. You DEFINITELY ain't seen nothing' yet with this one!!*If you are an old film nut, you'll probably recognize DeMille as the guy who brought us a long series of overblown religious epics like "The Ten Commandments".

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.

Way too long, but bizarre enough to keep you interested. Madam Satan is domestic drama, musical, disaster film, and comedy all rolled up together.Elements of The Boy Friend and I Married an Angel along with the Hindenburg disaster. Kay Johnson, Roland Young, and Lillian Roth are fun, but Reginald Denny is a dud in a role better suited to Robert Montgomery or William Haines. All the famous DeMille excesses are here but to no great effect. As in all DeMille films, every scene seems to long, and this 1930 talkie demonstrates that DeMille never quite got the hang of pacing a scene in a talkie. Still, it's entertaining on several levels, and Kay Johnson is fascinating. She came to films to star in DeMille's 1929 talkie, Dynamite, and had a so-so starring career for a while. Lillian Roth is the real surprise here tho, funny, energetic, and sexy. See this one.