Could it be... Madame Satan?!

One of my favorite things in life is to discover a cinematic gem that makes me ooh and aah and forget the popcorn in my lap. And courtesy of BAM's MGM Musical Festival, I was seduced by Madame Satan (1930).

Cecil B. DeMille is usually remembered for his biblical epics with lots of costumes, sets for days, and special effects that make the wrath of God plausible- and fun! So when I saw that he directed this very early sound musical romantic comedy, I was intrigued.

Madame Satan starts out like a lot of romantic comedy movies from the era. Angela (Kay Johnson) discovers her husband Bob (Reginald Denny) has a chippie named Trixie on the side (notorious I'll Cry Tomorrow songbird Lillian "Butterfingers" Roth). After Ang's maid sings her a song about fighting for love (I think that's what it was about. It was very hard to make it out through the sound snow of the old recording), she goes to Trix's sex-den to confront her.

The film becomes a clumsy bedroom farce of mistaken identities, locked doors, and women hidden under sheets. It was at this point that I thought, "Is this really a DeMille film? I haven't seen a single loincloth yet." There is none of the grandness that DeMille was legendary for- and the camerawork was basic static framing- with people literally walking into frame rather than the heavy sound camera moving. I was feeling duped. But the DeMilleness was about to begin.

Ang decides to battle for Bob's affections on Trixie's level and follows the couple to a masquerade ball being held on- wait for it- A ZEPPELIN! From this moment on, consider my mind blown. The party scene is one long bacchanal of over-the-topness.

From the decco design of the blimp, to the outlandish costumes, to the Denishawn-esque ode to electricity dance break, the rest of this movie creates a pre-Depression fantasy world that I was practically leaping from my seat to be part of.

The silly plot of Ang pretending to be a masked French seductress named Madame Satan to regain Bob's love is luckily overshadowed by the feathers, fans, and wigs of costume designer Adrian. The costumes are dreams made reality with whimsy fighting gravity at every turn. You have never seen costumes like this in your life- unless it is in another Adrian film.

DeMille's style arises with gliding tracking and point-of-view shots that make the dirigible feel like an entire world unto itself. When a thunderstorm strikes the airship the special effects are harrowing- turning what was a night of music and dancing into The Poseidon Adventure in the sky. The shots of the garishly dressed passengers leaping from the decks with parachutes are dreamlike and gorgeous with the double print technology teetering between reality and fantasy. Here is DeMille giving us the bang for our cinema buck.

There are probably lots of reasons for why this film's two parts are so disparate. Perhaps it is meant to support Ang/Madame Satan's duality and the two separate worlds of marriage and sexual freedom. Maybe DeMille was cleverly showing the limitations of the new sound film and its possibilities in the same movie. Or maybe it was just that it was only his second talkie. Whatever the reason, the second half of the film makes Madame Satan unforgettable.

BAM's tuneful festival continues this weekend with Vincente Minnelli's iconic musical Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). There's not a blimp- but there is a trolley.