CommentsXp Best movie ever!

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Antonius Block The first part of this movie is just awful, and I think everyone but the most forgiving of viewers will find themselves rolling their eyes, cringing, or maybe even snoozing. The acting is poor, the cadence of the dialogue awkward, and character motivations often nonsensical. All I can say is, stick with it. There is silliness throughout the movie, but it gets much more entertaining as it develops, and there are some pretty wild scenes that ultimately made me like it, somewhat to my surprise.The premise of the movie is an age-old theme; a wife (Kay Johnson) does not like her husband's late nights boozing it up and philandering (he's played by Reginald Denny), while he doesn't like her coolness and lack of passion. "Don't you understand? Love can't be kept in cold storage. It's a battery that has to be recharged every day," he says, with clear sexual overtones. However, she's aware that he's having an affair, having found a note from his mistress (Lillian Roth) after he comes home drunk with a buddy (Roland Young). As a little indication of the silliness, the two men are sloppy to the point that they're showering with one another with their clothes on. Husband and wife argue and separate, even though it's clear they still love one another. Lillian Roth really lights up the screen and gives the movie its first real spark with her short musical number, "Low Down", shaking her hips and twirling about with a top hat (Google this one for a treat). When Johnson confronts Roth at the end of a mostly insufferable scene where all four principals are in her apartment, Roth points out that men, including Johnson's husband, appreciate her spiciness and fun. "What do I give him? I laugh when he does. I drink when he does! I give him a pal with lips to kiss and shoulders to hug. I give him a dream made out of perfume and soft lights. I jazz all the dullness out of his soul for him!" she says, warbling with a voice that sounds like pure 1930. Johnson vows to "raise her temperature" to win her husband back, and storms out.It's at this point that the movie gets good. Cut to a masquerade ball on a dirigible (of course!). The outfits (designed by Adrian) are wild, and the opening musical number is as well. Roth is getting a lot of attention from the men until Kay Johnson makes her dramatic appearance. Her transformation into 'Madame Satan' is excellent, and she really pulls off dressing up as a vixen, slinking around in a sexy outfit. Her husband finds himself attracted without knowing who she is, and things get crazy when the weather gets stormy. Suddenly we find ourselves in a disaster movie, and seven years before the Hindenburg. Director Cecil B. DeMille botched the first half of the movie, but really makes up for it in the second, with lots of nice moments, drama mixed with comedy, and risqué dialogue. The male performances from Denny and Young are pretty poor, but Roth and Johnson (when she's Madame Satan) make up for it. I may be rounding up a bit, but weirdly, I wound up liking it, and would watch it again.

Igenlode Wordsmith This is a totally bizarre amalgam of at least three different films: a wisecracking sex-comedy, an unsuccessful operetta, and a bedroom-hopping farce. Add into that mix 'disaster movie' and 'fashion parade', and you get a film that's worth seeing just for its jaw-dropping novelty value alone.It's actually pretty good: most of the humour is intentional, and some of the rest of it may well be. (I'm not sure quite how seriously the film takes itself: I got the impression that the heroine is pretty much in the know about what is going on, for example, and is simply playing innocent when it suits her... either to get the information she's after, or merely in order to watch her misbehaving husband squirm.) Farce isn't my thing, but those scenes are pretty slickly done, while a lot of the risqué dialogue sparkles.Sadly the film suffers from primitive sound recording techniques, to the extent that most of the lyrics of the musical sections are incomprehensible -- not too much of a problem for the stand-alone numbers, but a big issue for the ensemble songs that are supposed to drive the later part of the plot. A lot of the verbal punchlines to the visual jokes at the masquerade disappeared into the background fuzz, as well: for example, I still don't know what on earth Bob's costume was supposed to be, because I missed the announcement as he entered.As a musical "Madam Satan" is not very successful: it's a story of missed opportunities (Cole Porter, Rudolf Friml, Oscar Hammerstein II, Sigmund Romberg and even Albert Ketelbey of "In a Monastery Garden" fame were all considered to write the musical numbers at one time or another, as were Jeanette MacDonald and Gloria Swanson for the lead). The operetta numbers are unmemorable -- the 'popular' numbers from Jack King and Elsie Janis have worn better in performance style, although you still won't find yourself whistling them as you leave.There are lengthy ballet/costume sequences in the second half of the film that appear to be basically the equivalent of the gratuitous fashion parade colour reels that crop up in various 1930s films -- simply inserted into the story as an excuse to show off the spectacle. They are staggeringly extravagant, but to my taste the display dragged a bit after a while. (Watching all the revellers subsequently attempt to don parachute harnesses on top of these costumes, however, tends to confirm me in my suspicion that the film really doesn't take itself seriously!) And we learn, to my amazement at least, that on a dirigible the parachutes are not actually packed on the wearer's back but attached to casings in the hull itself -- no wonder the harnesses look weirdly skeletal. You can't simply jump free wearing a parachute: you have to be clipped on first...The parachute sequence is another piece of disaster-comedy that has to be seen to be believed. On the whole I'd say that the film is at least 60% successful: MGM might have done better if they had ditched the musical elements altogether, since this is probably the weakest strand and the box office was saturated by musicals at this point, and gone flat out for shock value. It's certainly worth seeing for sheer bizarreness.

tricialu While this movie leaves a lot to be desired in the plot department, the costumes more than make up for it for any viewers interested in costume design, or 1930's fashion in general. Basically, the plot goes like this: a playboy husband (Bob) thinks his virtuous, classy wife (Angela- get it?) is "frigid," so he leaves her for saucy girlfriend Trixie. Determined to get her husband back, Angela attends an elaborate costume party held on a blimp, disguised as the incredible Madam Satan, a totally sexy mystery woman. Bob falls in love with her all over again even though he doesn't realize her true identity, just as the blimp is damaged and going to crash. Marital problems solved, and they jump to safety in parachutes. The special effects of people jumping to safety are totally cool, in a similar way to the 1933 King Kong's. It's totally worth sitting through the turgid plot for the classic Cecil B. DeMille scene at the costume party, and the amazing costumes were done by a young Adrian, the best Hollywood designer of all time, who also costumed The Wizard of Oz, The Women, Dinner at 8, and many other famous movies for silver screen goddesses like Crawford, Harlow, Garbo, and Norma Shearer.

drednm2004 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.