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Satan Met a Lady (1936)
The Big Shakedown (1934)

Satan Met a Lady (1936)
March 7, 2011 - 7:30 pm
Billy Wilder Theater

Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute

Satan Met a Lady (1936)

Satan Met a Lady (1936)

Directed by William Dieterle

Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. Producer: Henry Blanke. Screenwriter: Brown Holmes, based on the novel The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Cinematographer: Arthur Edeson. Editor: Warren Low. With: Bette Davis, Warren William, Alison Skipworth, Arthur Treacher, Marie Wilson. 35mm, b/w, 74 min.

Warner Bros. infamous, second adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, just five years after its first, Satan Met A Lady features a number of arguably eccentric changes to Hammett’s classic Sam Spade mystery, including a name change for Spade (Ted Shane) and the substitution of a jewel-filled ram’s horn for The Maltese Falcon itself. Aside from these and other story tweaks, introduced by screenwriter Brown Holmes, who contributed to the 1931 adaption, Satan Met A Lady is also memorable as the production, along with subsequent The Golden Arrow, that finally brought simmering tensions between Bette Davis and Warner Bros. to a head.

Having won her first Academy Award in March 1936 for her performance in Dangerous (1935), Davis was hoping for projects to match her now widely recognized talents going forward. The role of Valerie Purvis, the Brigid O’Shaughnessy character in the novel, in a hastily concocted remake, even one helmed by William Dieterle, didn’t meet with Davis’ expectations. After initially refusing to show up on the Satan Met A Lady set, she was suspended by Warner Bros. and later relented. On the film’s release, The New York Times reviewer wrote that after viewing the film “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.”

Be that as it may, Satan Met A Lady has its charms as Warner Bros stab at concocting a mystery, with comedic overtones, in the vein of The Thin Man series.

Paul Malcolm

Preserved in cooperation with Warner Bros. and Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation from the original 35mm nitrate picture and track negatives and a 35mm nitrate composite print. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio. Special thanks to: Ned Price; and Patrick Loughney, Gregory Lukow, Mike Mashon, Rob Stone, Ken Weissman, George Willeman, and members of the Library of Congress Moving Image Section and Film Laboratory staffs.

Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute

The Big Shakedown (1934)

The Big Shakedown (1934)

Directed by John Francis Dillon

First National Pictures, Inc. Producer: Sam Bischoff. Screenwriter: Niven Busch, Rian James. Cinematographer: Sidney Hickox. Editor: Thomas Richards. With: Charles Farrell, Bette Davis, Ricardo Cortez, Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins. 35mm, b/w, 64 min.

Two years and over a dozen films into her contract with Warner Bros., Bette Davis was still struggling to break through from studio programmers to the the A-list when she was cast in The Big Shakedown as Norma Nelson, the saccharine-sweet, ever-supportive fiancée of a pharmacist who falls in with gangsters. It was the kind of stock role that always rankled Davis but it set the all-important context for her game-changing performance as the malevolent Mildred in Of Human Bondage, released just six months later.

As Norma, Davis wrings her hands and worries after her beau Jimmy Morrell, played by silent film star (and later mayor of Palm Springs) Charles Farrell, makes a deal with a local mob boss to provide his gang with counterfeit toiletries. For ex-bootlegger “Dutch” Barnes (Ricardo Cortez, segueing from romantic lead in the silent era to sound-era heavy), it’s a new racket with a huge potential and he convinces Jimmy that there’s no harm in passing off Jimmy’s own home-made toothpaste as name brand merchandise. Pretty soon, Jimmy has enough money to marry Norma and the future looks bright until Barnes uses a murder rap to blackmail Jimmy into making prescription drugs that threaten the public health. When a pregnant Norma is given Jimmy’s tainted version of digitalis at the hospital during birth, resulting in the child’s death, Jimmy vows revenge and the straightforward gangster plot careens into over-the-top melodrama.

As a B-movie featuring several major stars in career transition—some up, some down—The Big Shakedown is exemplary of the films that shaped this pivotal period of Davis’ career in the years before she shot to super stardom.

Paul Malcolm

Preserved in cooperation with Warner Bros. and Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation from the original 35mm nitrate picture and track negatives and a 35mm nitrate composite print. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio. Special thanks to: Ned Price; and Patrick Loughney, Gregory Lukow, Mike Mashon, Rob Stone, Ken Weissman, George Willeman, and members of the Libraryof Congress Moving Image Section and Film Laboratory staffs.

Part of: 
2011 UCLA Festival of Preservation