SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

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".

The second of three films that Cecil B. DeMille did for MGM and in which he made his sound debut was Madam Satan and a lot of reviewers have said this is a strange movie. Strange that it is a bit weird, but not so strange in that DeMille made many silent screen comedies that all kinds of interesting and decadent settings. A high society masquerade ball in a dirigible would be right in keeping with those films. But after Madam Satan he never made another like this.The plot of Madam Satan is kind of like The Guardsman with the shoe on the other foot. Wife Kay Johnson has discovered that her husband Reginald Denny has been stepping out with flapper girl Lillian Roth. She determines to win him back so if hot and sexy is what moves Reggie, Kay can be just as hot and sexy as Lil.Their friend society playboy Roland Young is throwing a big masquerade ball on a dirigible and Kay goes as the mysterious and masked Madam Satan. She definitely turns a lot of heads including Denny's. But during a thunderstorm, lightning strikes the big balloon and loosens it from its moorings. After that Madam Satan becomes a harbinger of the disaster movies of the Seventies. This is DeMille doing what he does best, big and gaudy spectacle. It's the main reason to see Madam Satan today.The film tanked big time at the box office. It might have done better just a year earlier before the Stock Market crash, but in September of 1930 when it was released audiences in the Depression just couldn't get worked up for a bunch of high society people in big trouble. Those that could afford a ticket price probably cheered as the great blimp went down.Still Madam Satan remains an interesting if dated piece of cinema.

I found Madam Satan a rather strange hybrid of melodrama and musical, with elements of sex farce thrown in for good measure. It is divided into two distinct halves: the first takes place at the home of Bob and Angela, and at Trixie's flat. Then, it's aboard a moored Zeppelin for the second half for the party and the bulk of the musical numbers. A few witty ripostes here and there, some occasionally charming musical numbers, but overall a rather tepid affair. I just don't think Reginald Denny and Kay Johnson have the onscreen charisma to do this story justice. Roland Young is always amusing with his befuddled manner, in a sort of warm up to his Topper movies, but with Denny and Johnson to play against, he becomes the most interesting character by default. But the film is interesting in its moralizing about straying husbands and a wife's duty to spice up the marriage, considering DeMille's own unsatisfactory marriage and philandering ways. Setting the second half aboard a Zeppelin with its sinking ship analogies probably seemed very modern at the time, and it is interesting to note that even six years before the Hindenburg disaster, a Hollywood movie exploits the inherent danger to such a mode of transportation. Perhaps with a really sparkling script by a master screenwriter such as Robert Riskin, and more luminous leads, this could have been a major delight instead of a trifle.

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.