| Madam Satan | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Produced by | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Written by | Jeanie Macpherson Gladys Unger |
| Starring | Kay Johnson Reginald Denny Lillian Roth |
| Music by | Clifford Grey Elsie Janis Herbert Stothart (Ballet Mecanique, uncredited) |
| Cinematography | Harold Rosson |
| Editing by | Anne Bauchens |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | 1930 |
| Running time | 116 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Madam Satan (1930) is a dramatic pre-Code musical film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille for MGM, one of the few DeMille made for the Culver City studio. It has been called one of the oddest films DeMille made and certainly one of the oddest MGM made during its "golden age."[1]
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Thematically, this marked an attempt by DeMille to return to the boudoir comedies genre that had brought him financial success about ten years earlier.[2]
Angela Brooks (Kay Johnson) discovers that her husband Bob (Reginald Denny) is cheating on her with another woman, Trixie (Lillian Roth).
Learning that her husband intends to go to a costume ball on a moored dirigible in New York City, Angela disguises herself and attempts to "vamp" her husband. During the ball there are a number of exotic musical numbers. A thunderstorm causes the dirigible to break apart and everyone is forced to parachute into the reservoir in Central Park.
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The zeppelin sequences were originally filmed in Technicolor.[3] The film, however, was released in black and white due to the backlash against musicals which made the extra expense of color superfluous. The same thing occurred with another MGM musical, Children of Pleasure (1930), whose color sequences were similarly released in black and white. The original color sequences to Madame Satan no longer exist.
DeMille originally set out to contract writer Dorothy Parker to augment Jeanie MacPherson's original script. Learning that she was living in France, and that this would make collaboration too difficult, de Mille then sought vaudeville writer Elsie Janis.[4] She agreed to work on the project, but left amicably on March 24, 1930, due to creative difference; she did not like the direction the script was going.[5]
Hollywood censor Jason Joy worked with DeMille to minimize censorable elements in the potentially objectionable script. "They agreed to put less revealing costumes on the girls at the masquerade party. Body stockings, larger fig leaves and translucent fishnets took care of most of the nudity. The drinking scenes were toned down...", Angela's "Madam Satan" costume was also made less revealing. An entire scene where Angela confronts Trixie, and Trixie is shown wearing a sheer nightgown because she "has nothing to hide" was deleted.[6] The collaboration ended up being agreeable to both men. The notoriously finicky Ohio censor board passed the film without cuts.[7]
Thomas Meighan was sought for the lead role of Bob Brooks before Reginald Denny was cast on January 9, 1930.[8] DeMille wanted Gloria Swanson for the role of Angela, but her lover and business partner Joseph P. Kennedy reportedly persuaded her not to accept the role. Swanson was still trying to salvage her disastrous venture Queen Kelly and was advised not to appear in films not made by her own production company.[9] Originally scheduled to shoot for seventy days, it wrapped at a mere fifty-nine,[10] commencing on March 3 and ending on May 2, 1930.[11] It was the most expensive film made by Metro in 1930, and would remain its most expensive musical until The Merry Widow.[12]
The film was released at a time when American theaters had become saturated with musicals, and as a result it was a financial failure,[13][14][15] eventually showing a net loss of $390,000.[16] Today the film is regarded as an oddity, amusing, and an exercise in DeMille using "too much of everything just because he can."[17]
The original black-and-white release print is extant but seems to be missing at least one musical number. According to film reviews of 1930, Kay Johnson and Reginald Denny originally sang This Is Love in the movie, but in the currently circulating print this song is only heard playing in the background during a scene in which Kay Johnson is speaking to her maid.[18]
The original Technicolor sequences exist only in black-and-white. The movie is available on VHS [19] and, as of November 9, 2010, on DVD via the Warner Archive Collection made-to-order process.[20]
Abe Lyman, who can be seen in the film, was hired to play the music in this film. He recorded two numbers from the film for Brunswick Records. Live And Love Today and This Is Love were released on Brunswick's popular ten inch series as record number 4804.