Satan Met a Lady
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''Satan Met a Lady'' is a 1936 American
detective film A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, i ...
directed by
William Dieterle William Dieterle (July 15, 1893 – December 9, 1972) was a German-born actor and film director who emigrated to the United States in 1930 to leave a worsening political situation. He worked in Hollywood primarily as a director for much of his ...
and starring
Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
and
Warren William Warren William (born Warren William Krech; December 2, 1894 – September 24, 1948) was a Broadway and Hollywood actor, immensely popular during the early 1930s; he was later nicknamed the "King of Pre-Code". He was the first actor to play Perry ...
. The screenplay by Brown Holmes is a loose adaptation of the 1929 novel '' The Maltese Falcon'' by
Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett (; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade ('' ...
, (original publisher
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers i ...
in 1929) which was previously filmed five years earlier,
pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...
, under its original title directed by
Roy Del Ruth Roy Del Ruth (October 18, 1893, Delaware – April 27, 1961) was an American filmmaker. Early career Beginning his Hollywood career as a writer for Mack Sennett in 1915, Del Ruth later directed his first short film ''Hungry Lions'' (1919) ...
and would be remade
again Again may refer to: Entertainment * ''Again'' (video game), a 2009 adventure game for the Nintendo DS * '' Again!!'' manga * ''Again!'', a 2011 children's book by Emily Gravett * ''Again'' (film), a 2015 Japanese film Music * Again (band), a ...
five years later by director
John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...
with
Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart (; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film In ...
as detective
Sam Spade Sam Spade is a fictional character and the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel '' The Maltese Falcon''. Spade also appeared in four lesser-known short stories by Hammett. ''The Maltese Falcon'', first published as a serial in the pulp ...
.


Plot

Private detective Ted Shane returns to work with his former partner Ames, who is not particularly happy about the situation because his wife Astrid dated Ted before they were wed. Valerie Purvis hires the detectives to locate a man called Farrow, and when both Ames and Farrow are found dead, Shane is suspected of both murders. Shane finds his office and apartment have been ransacked and his secretary Miss Murgatroyd has been locked in a closet by Anthony Travers, who is in search of an 8th-century ram's horn rumored to be filled with jewels. Madame Barabbas is also searching for the treasure and sends a gunman to bring Shane to her. Working all sides of the street, Shane makes deals with each of them to find the horn, and eventually winds up in possession of a package allegedly containing it, but it turns out to be full of sand instead of jewels. The police round up all the suspects, but Shane and Valerie escape. He baits her into confessing to Ames's murder and tries to apprehend her for the $10,000 reward, but Valerie thwarts him by allowing a washroom attendant to turn her in to the police instead. Miss Murgatroyd then shows up and claims Shane for her own.


Cast

*
Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
as Valerie Purvis *
Warren William Warren William (born Warren William Krech; December 2, 1894 – September 24, 1948) was a Broadway and Hollywood actor, immensely popular during the early 1930s; he was later nicknamed the "King of Pre-Code". He was the first actor to play Perry ...
as Ted Shane *
Alison Skipworth Alison Skipworth (born Alison Mary Elliott Margaret Groom; 25 July 18635 July 1952) was an English stage and screen actress. Early years Skipworth was born in London. She was the daughter of Dr. Richard Ebenezer Groom and Elizabeth Rodgers, an ...
as Madame Barabbas *
Arthur Treacher Arthur Veary Treacher (, 23 July 1894 – 14 December 1975) was an English film and stage actor active from the 1920s to the 1960s, and known for playing English types, especially butler and manservant roles, such as the P.G. Wodehouse valet c ...
as Anthony Travers * Winifred Shaw as Astrid Ames * Marie Wilson as Miss Murgatroyd *
Porter Hall Clifford Porter Hall (September 19, 1888 – October 6, 1953) was an American character actor known for appearing in a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s. Hall typically played villains or comedic incompetent characters. Early years Hall wa ...
as Milton Ames *
Olin Howland Olin Ross Howland (February 10, 1886 – September 20, 1959) was an American film and theatre actor. Life and career Howland was born in Denver, Colorado, to Joby A. Howland, one of the youngest enlisted participants in the Civil War, an ...
as Detective Dunhill * Charles C. Wilson as Detective Pollock *
William Davidson William or Bill Davidson may refer to: Businessmen * Bill Davidson (businessman) (1922–2009), Michigan businessman and sports team owner ** William Davidson Institute, University of Michigan, named in honor of Bill Davidson * William Davidson ...
as Spokesman (uncredited) * John Elliott as Committee Member (uncredited) *
Leo White Leo White (November 10, 1882 – September 20, 1948), Leo Weiss, was a German-born British-American film and stage actor who appeared as a character actor in many Charlie Chaplin films. Biography Born in Germany, White grew up in England where ...
as Waiter (uncredited)


Production

Since they already owned the screen rights to the Dashiell Hammett novel ''The Maltese Falcon'', economical
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
executives decided to film another version of the book and assigned contract writer Brown Holmes to pen the screenplay. Showing little regard for the original material, Holmes converted its object of desirea jewel-encrusted statuette of a falconinto a ram's horn filled with precious gems, changed character names (
Sam Spade Sam Spade is a fictional character and the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel '' The Maltese Falcon''. Spade also appeared in four lesser-known short stories by Hammett. ''The Maltese Falcon'', first published as a serial in the pulp ...
became "Ted Shane"), altered the sex of one of the criminal masterminds from male to female, and retitled the story, first to ''The Man in the Black Hat'' and then ''Men on Her Mind''.Stine, Whitney, and Davis, Bette, ''Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis''. New York: Hawthorn Books 1974. , pp. 75–76 Filming began on December 1, 1935, although leading lady
Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
, upset that she was being forced to film "junk" after completing a prestige project like ''
The Petrified Forest ''The Petrified Forest'' is a 1936 American film directed by Archie Mayo and based on Robert E. Sherwood's 1935 Broadway drama of the same name. The motion picture stars Leslie Howard, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. The screenplay was written ...
'', failed to report to the set. "I was so distressed by the whole tone of the script and the vapidity of my part that I marched up to Mr. Warner's office and demanded that I be given work that was commensurate with my proven ability," she later recalled in her autobiography. "I was promised wonderful things if only I would do this film." She was suspended on December 3 and, angry and resentful but in need of her salary to cover living expenses for her mother and medical care for her sister, she reported to work three days later. Upon completion of principal photography,
art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...
Max Parker Max Parker (July 12, 1882 – July 8, 1964) was an American art director. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film ''George Washington Slept Here''. He worked on 86 films between 1916 and 1947. He ...
assembled a rough cut that so confused studio heads they assigned Warren Low to re-edit it. It was released on July 22, 1936, retitled ''Satan Met a Lady'' (the book had a line describing Sam Spade as looking "rather pleasantly like a blonde Satan"). By then, Davis was in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, having been placed on suspension for refusing to portray a lumberjack in ''
God's Country and the Woman ''God's Country and the Woman'' is a 1937 American Technicolor lumberjack drama film directed by William Keighley and written by Norman Reilly Raine. The film stars George Brent, Beverly Roberts, Barton MacLane, Robert Barrat, Alan Hale, Sr. and ...
''. In later years, she recalled insisting "I won't do it! ''Satan Met a Lady'' was bad enough, but this is ''absolute tripe''."


Critical reception

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...
of the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' called the film "a cynical farce of elaborate and sustained cheapness" that "deserves to be quoted as a classic of dullness" and observed, "Without taking sides in a controversy of such titanic proportions, it is no more than gallantry to observe that if Bette Davis had not effectually espoused her own cause against the Warners recently by quitting her job, the Federal Government eventually would have had to step in and do something about her. After viewing ''Satan Met a Lady'' … all thinking people must acknowledge that a Bette Davis Reclamation Project (BDRP) to prevent the waste of this gifted lady's talents would not be a too-drastic addition to our various programs for the conservation of natural resources." He concluded, "So disconnected and lunatic are the picture's incidents, so irrelevant and monstrous its people, that one lives through it in constant expectation of seeing a group of uniformed individuals appear suddenly from behind the furniture and take the entire cast into protective custody. There is no story, merely a farrago of nonsense representing a series of practical studio compromises with an unworkable script. It is the kind of mistake over which the considerate and discreet thing is to draw the veil of silence." ''Varietys 1936 review was less vitriolic but hardly enthusiastic. "This is an inferior remake of 931's''The Maltese Falcon''.... Many changes have been made in story structure as well as title, but none is an improvement." It noted that both Davis's and William's credits were dropped "below the title" and that "Davis has much less to do than at least one other femme member of the cast." There were mixed impressions of William: while Ricardo Cortez's Sam Spade in the 1931 picture had been "natural and amusing, illiamand his satiric crime detection are now forced and unnatural." Yet at the same time, "his performance is all that keeps the picture moving in many lagging moments." In summary, the review said, "There's hardly any mystery in this version. The comedy isn't strong enough to fill the bill." ''
Time Out London ''Time Out'' is a global magazine published by Time Out Group. ''Time Out'' started as a London-only publication in 1968 and has expanded its editorial recommendations to 328 cities in 58 countries worldwide. In 2012, the London edition becam ...
'' noted that although the film can't compare to the 1941 screen adaptation of the Hammett novel, "Thanks to Dieterle's stylishly witty direction and excellent performances, it's nevertheless enjoyably and quirkily funny, at least until just before the end, when a whole wedge of undigested plot exposition suddenly catches up with the action."''Time Out London'' review
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References


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Satan Met A Lady 1936 films American crime drama films American detective films 1936 crime drama films American black-and-white films Films based on mystery novels Films directed by William Dieterle Warner Bros. films Films based on American novels Films based on works by Dashiell Hammett 1930s American films Films scored by Heinz Roemheld Films scored by Bernhard Kaun