MADAM SATAN Musical/Romantic Comedy Synopsis: MADAM SATAN is an MGM video release which I was requested to review. I thought this picture was the cat's meow. Hey I had to use some of the vernacular of the period Madam Satan was directed by Cecil B. DeMille who began directing in 1914 with Sqaw Man. This film was released in 1930. That means first off the sound sucks but that is to be expected since it is an early talky. This is not the greatest film of the period but it was to watch. Kay Johnson plays wife to Reginald Denny's playboy husband who is in love with love which means he is always chasing skirts and ignores the one woman who really loves him. His comedic partner in crime is Roland Young who played the lead in Topper with Cary Grant. His love interest at the time is Trixie played by Lillian Roth. The wife catches on to the game and decides after a confrontation with her husband's mistress, Trixie, to attend a wild party given by Roland Young. The costume party is held on a moored dirigible. Pause here while we explain. For those of you who are to young, a dirigible is an zepplin, an air ship like those you see floating around the sky during football games. Okay back to the action. The party gets going with many a musical number which oly suffers due tot the poor sound. The costumes are spectacular and the girls are beautiful and the dance numbers are even better. Enter Madam Satan (the wife in disquise) using her best French accent. Many funny and romantic scenes occur as her husband begins to ignore his lover Trixie and slowly falls for this masked woman of mystery, Madam Satan. She goes all out to give him what he thinks he wants. Just as he finds out who it is disaster strikes. A thunderstorm causes the dirigible to come loose from it's mooring. It goes out of control and begins to break apart as dirigibles are known to do. They are forced to abandon ship using an interesting parachute system that I have never been seen. As the people float down in a rather humourous sequence, only the husband, wife and mistress are left. In exchange for her parachute the wife gets the mistress to relinguish all hold on her husband. The husband manages to find one more parachut and physically forces his wife off the ship as it splits in two and spirals towards the ground. The husband is trapped on board the dirigible as it hurls to the ground. He has no means of escape...that's it that's as far as I go. You do not want me to tell you what happens do you. Find the video. This film was considered scandalous at the time before film censors came into being. When it played on television many scenes were removed. By today's standards, of course, this film is really mild. Well that's it, I have more films to go and watch. P.S It is MADAM SATAN not Madame Satan as some have it listed. Cast and Credits: Starring:Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth and Roland Young Directed by...Cecile B. DeMille Written by...Elsie Janis & Jeannie MacPherson Distributed by MGM Video R/AA for language, extreme violence and scenes of nudity Read Another Review Of This Film Read Still Another Review Of This Film

YOUR MOVIE REVIEWS
MADAM SATAN

Send Your reviews to...
vjm@metrocity.com