Alicia
I love this movie so much
Dynamixor
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Calum Hutton
It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
utgard14
Second film version of The Maltese Falcon is worth a look but pales by comparison to either the 1931 version or the 1941 classic. The problem is they cut so much of what makes the story great, particularly most of Dashiell Hammett's great dialogue. They also add a lot of unfunny comedy to things. Warren William is Ted Shane (not Sam Spade) and he spends the whole movie trying to be as annoying as possible. I think he was supposed to be roguishly charming but it just came across as smug and irritating. Marie Wilson, who I normally like, also gets on my nerves here. Worth seeing for the curiosity factor, as well as Bette Davis, who looks great and is the most interesting part of the movie.
spelvini
Satan Met a Lady is a fascinating adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel The Maltese Falcon into an unusual mixture of mystery and comedy and actually has several funny moments but veers so far from the source material that its effect is dissipated. In comparison to some recent comedy thrillers the film could be seen as ahead of its time. If John Huston had never made the quintessential Film Noir adaption of Hammet's novel The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart in the lead, Satan Met a Lady may have gained an entirely different stature.The film does have some funny moments as when Valerie Purvis catches Shayne searching her room and pulls a gun on him with the line "Do you mind very much, Mr. Shayne, taking off your hat in the presence of a lady with a gun?" There is also some very funny stuff with Warren William playing against Arthur Treacher's British character Anthony Travers. When Travers says he'll give Shayne 500 dollars for information and hands him a bill, the detective walks over to a lamp inspects the bill and summarily tears it up, getting a gentlemanly response from the Brit in an "Sorry" as he hands him another bill which the private dick inspects and pockets- it's a bit of visual business that is perfectly timed by the actors.
readinglips
First off: this is not the stuff of classics. We're not talking CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE (and especially not the 1941 MALTESE FALCON) here. And, yes, perhaps it IS the least successful version of Hammett's story (although the 1931 film really drags these days…). But an off-the-wall take on a classic story can still be funny and stand on its own without being compared to more traditional versions. That's the way you should approach Satan MET A LADY and that is why I'm surprised I haven't heard more about this film.What I like most is that no one is taking anything too seriously. In THE MALTESE FALCON, Gutman and Wonderly/O'Shaughnessy say they never know what's going to come out of Spade's mouth next. That's certainly true here: from gender bending (the Gutman character is a woman) to different takes on characters (the "gunsel" is a wimpy mama's boy) to off-the-wall dialogue, you never know what's going to happen next. Without over-the-top "winking" at the audience, the actors tell us not to take things too seriously either and just have fun. If you know either of the other versions, it's fun wondering what they're going to pull out of the hat next. (For example, it's not a statue of a falcon that everyone is after, but rather the so-called (and equally fictitious) "Horn of Roland" stuffed with jewels and supposedly handed down from the days of Charlemagne.) To be sure, not everything works. When you try to play off-the-wall, you're bound to make some mistakes, and even fall flat. The secretary for Shayne (Spade), now re-named Miss Murgatroyd (instead of Effie), is far too ditsy, even for this material; her romance scenes make Shayne/Spade play more like he's toying with jail bait. But even so, the worst you can say about the movie as a whole is that it's "uneven".Sure, the 1941 version is far better, both as a film and as a rendering of Hammett's story. However, the filmmakers weren't trying to be faithful to the source material here. Brown Holmes wrote the screenplay for the 1931 version and yet they hired him again for this one and didn't care that he ran roughshod over the original story.I'm no apologist: this is not a great film. But it does have its own charms and it's certainly better than much of the drivel that came out of the 1930s. Give it a try: the unpredictability factor alone makes it worth the ride.
whpratt1
Just happened to view this film from the 1930's which I seemed to have missed with Bette Davis and many great character actors. It is something like the "Maltese Falcon", where everyone is involved with trying to find a TRUMPET filled with valuable gems. Bette Davis,(Valerie Purvis),"Madame Sin",'72, looks very young and attractive and lives up to her role as an evil lady who stops at nothing to charm her men and use them in every way possible and of course, sexually! Warren William, (Ted Shayne),"The Wolf Man",'41, looks like John Barrymore and even Basil Rathbone,(Sherlock Holmes series of the 1940's), Ted Shayne manages to take on the case of trying to find the valuable TRUMPET and has a dippy female assistant, Marie Wilson,(Miss Murgatroyd),"Waterfront", who has a crush on her boss Ted Shayne who simply goes head over heels for Valerie, who wraps him around her pinkie. Arthur Treacher,(Anthony Travers),"Mary Poppins",'64, famous for his, "Arthur Treacher Fish & Chips Food Chain years ago. Anthony Travers gives a great supporting role and always looks like the butler he use to play in most of his films. If you love Classic films with Bette Davis, this is definitely the film for you.
