Madam Satan
| Madam Satan | |
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theatrical release lobby card
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| Directed by | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Produced by | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Written by |
Dialogue: Gladys Unger Elsie Janis |
| Screenplay by | Jeanie Macpherson |
| Starring |
Kay Johnson Reginald Denny Lillian Roth Roland Young |
| Music by | (see "Music" below) |
| Cinematography | Harold Rosson |
| Edited by | Anne Bauchens |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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116 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Madam Satan or Madame Satan is a 1930 American Pre-Code musical comedy film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth and Roland Young
Madam Satan has been called one of the oddest films DeMille made and certainly one of the oddest MGM made during its "golden age." The film originally featured Technicolor sequences that are now lost. Thematically, this marked an attempt by DeMille to return to the boudoir comedies genre that had brought him financial success about 10 years earlier.
Socialite Angela Brooks (Kay Johnson) discovers that her husband Bob (Reginald Denny) is cheating on her with Trixie (Lillian Roth), occasioned by the staid coldness Bob finds Angela to have developed after their marriage.
Encouraged by her maid to fight for her happiness, Angela, after a farcical encounter at Trixie's apartment, conceives a plan to win back her husband's affections. An elaborate masquerade ball is to be held by her husband's best friend Jimmy Wade (Roland Young) in aboard the a moored dirigible named the Zeppelin CB-P-55. Angela will attend, disguised as a mysterious devil woman—"Madam Satan"—to "vamp" her husband. Hidden behind her mask and wrapped in an alluring gown that reveals more than it covers, Angela will find her errant husband at the ball and teach him a lesson.
Bob becomes bewitched by Angela in her disguise, nothing like the demure spouse he left at home. During the ball, several exotic musical numbers are performed. In the course of the frivolities, a thunderstorm causes the dirigible to break apart and everyone is forced to parachute. Angela, who by this time has unmasked and made herself known to the still-entranced Bob, gives Trixie her parachute, making her promise to leave Bob alone. Bob gives Angela his parachute, and she descends safely into—the back seat of a car in which a couple are necking. Bob rides a piece of the broken dirigible down, diving off before impact into "the city reservoir." Jimmy ends up in a tree in the middle of the lion enclosure at the zoo, while Trixie breaks through the roof of a turkish bath full of toweled men who scramble to cover themselves.
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Wikipedia