Satan Met a Lady: A Review

SATAN MET A LADY

In 1941, director John Huston made one of the most auspicious debuts in film history with The Maltese Falcon. While considered now as the definitive version of the Dashiell Hammett novel and an early film noir, the 1941 Maltese Falcon is technically the third adaption of Hammett's novel. The novel had been first made in 1931. It was remade a mere five years later as Satan Met a Lady. Neither the original 1931 The Maltese Falcon nor Satan Met a Lady are much if at all remembered today. While I cannot say whether that fate is deserved for the 1931 original, it is more than earned for the abysmal Satan Met a Lady.

Ted Shane (Warren William) is a wheeler-dealer with a breezy manner and a way with women. He is ostensibly a detective working alongside Milton Ames (Porter Hall). Ames is a longsuffering fellow when it comes to Shane. He not only keeps drumming up lousy business for Ames. He also romanced Ames' now-wife Astrid (Winifred Shaw) in the past. His newest assignment is to follow the wealthy Mrs. R. Manchester Arden (May Beatty), whom Shane hoodwinks into thinking that jewel thieves are after her jewels. Meanwhile, the mysterious Valerie Purvis (Bette Davis) hires Shane & Ames to follow a man named Farrow, who has been following her.

It is a surprise when later both Ames and Farrow end up dead in a cemetery. Whodunit? Shane's frenemies Detectives Dunhill (Olin Howland) and Pollock (Charles C. Smith) think that maybe Shane himself bumped both off. Shane, ever breezy and amused by everything and everyone, is not the killer. He, however, is in the midst of a mystery over who done in Ames and Farrow. 

This case is tied in with Purvis, but how? Does it involve a rare horn supposedly owned by the legendary hero Roland? Roland's fabled horn is supposed to contain a treasure trove of jewels separate from its own historic value. It looks like everyone is after Roland's horn. There is the tall Englishman Travers (Arthur Treacher), the veddy proper muscle. There's Madame Barrabas (Alison Skipworth), the heavyset Queen of Crime. There's her wimpy nephew Kenny (Maynard Holmes), whose beanie irritates Shane. All of them are after Roland's horn. Ted Shane claims that he can get it for them. Each of them pays him handsomely for that promise. However, will Shane keep his word and his life? Double and triple crosses abound until the real killer is unmasked. There are, however, a few more twists until Ted Shane and his loyal secretary Miss Murgatroyd (Marie Wilson) can be together at last.

While watching Satan Met a Lady, I came to the surprising realization that the film is really a comedy. Either that, or someone forgot to tell everyone that the film was meant as a crime drama. The viewer should know this from the beginning when Bernhard Kaun and Heinz Roemheld's score began the film. The music is surprisingly jolly and upbeat for what one would initially think was a mystery. It soon becomes clear that almost no one in Satan Met a Lady is taking any of this seriously.

That, in and of itself, would not be a bad thing. No genre should be immune from a good spoof. However, Satan Met a Lady is not smart enough to be a spoof. I do not think it aimed to be a spoof or a lighthearted jaunt. Instead, I think everyone behind the camera was unaware of how awful Satan Met a Lady was. 

William Dieterle was a good director. Therefore, it is almost sad seeing how misdirected Satan Met a Lady was. One is unsure if Dieterle was aware of how awful to downright cringe everyone and everything was coming across. I think the main flaw is in how Dieterle directed almost all of his actors to play the situations as if they were not meant to be remotely serious. Take for example when Shane comes upon Ames' body. For reasons that I cannot fathom, Dieterle had everyone play this scene as if it were something one might find in a Mel Brooks film. You have no sense of suspense. You have Warren William's very breezy manner. You have Brown Holmes' screenplay giving awful puns.

When asked by one of the detectives, "Don't you want to take a closer look at your silent partner?", I simultaneously groaned and winced. Holmes seems dead set on giving the characters flat out idiotic things to say. Travers asks Shane about what he knows about Roland's horn, suspecting that he knows its whereabouts. Shane replies, "Well, they've pointed the finger at me for a lot of dirty tricks but never for a crime like playing the saxophone". 

I think a lot of Satan Met a Lady's failures come less from Dieterle's direction than from Holmes' adaptation. That is not to say that Dieterle is off the hook when it comes to blame. All but one, possibly two, of the performances looked slightly cartoonish and silly. When, for example, Kenneth gets hit in the hand, Maynard Holmes looks less menacing and more childlike. Overall, though, Brown Holmes' adaptation of The Maltese Falcon clearly was not interested in fidelity to the source material.

Instead, it was interested in showing how these characters were silly. Warren William was far too breezy and jolly to make Satan Met a Lady come anywhere close to looking serious. For the entirety of the film, William made Ted Shane look like someone who was a joke. His efforts to come across as unflappable sometimes made him look downright dumb. I think Marie Wilson did her best as Miss Murgatroyd. She was meant to be a dumb blonde, such as when she struggled to spell her own name. Her coos and flighty manner seemed more at home in a spoof than in an allegedly serious film.

That is what dooms Bette Davis' performance. In a sea of silliness, you see Davis making a sincere effort to be a femme fatale. There is nothing to hold her up. Not the screenplay. Not the directing. She tried. However, she was clearly attempting to be in a whole other movie than what Satan Met a Lady was. It looked like she at a certain point gave up too. While she was not hamming up it like so many were, Bette Davis' heart was not in the final product.

To be fair, I think Alison Skipworth did slightly better as Madame Barrabas. She could have plausibly been a good Queen of Crime. She did not embarrass herself but did not quite match Davis' determined efforts either. Interestingly enough, two actors from the film were recognizable. I struggled initially to place both Porter Hall and Olin Howland (the latter via his voice). Eventually, I remembered where I had seen them. Hall was the idiot psychiatrist from Miracle on 34th Street. Howland was the kooky diner owner on an I Love Lucy episode where he serenaded the Ricardos and Mertzes with an odd rendition of I'm Afraid to Come Home in the Dark. 

Satan Met a Lady to be fair has a great title. It is a misleading title. One thinks that it will be lurid and full of action, mystery and suspense. However, the tone is quickly established that it is an unintentional comedy. If nothing else, it would be worth watching to see Bette Davis making the best effort to save a film and her performance. Other than that, it is good that Satan Met a Lady is pretty much forgotten now. 

DECISION: D-