Madam Satan / Dynamite

January 25, 2015 - 7:00 pm

Billy Wilder Theater

In-person:

Richard Adkins, Hollywood Heritage.

Madam Satan (1930)

Produced during director Cecil B. DeMille’s brief residency at MGM (and following a period of independent production), this pre-Code comedy concerns the elaborate plan of a wealthy socialite to regain the heart of her philandering husband by means of a costume ball on a dirigible, at which the wife will seduce the husband while disguised. This unique vision of jazz-age decadence is one of the strangest and most arresting of DeMille's sex comedies.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Jeanie Macpherson, Gladys Unger, Elsie Janis. Cinematographer: Harold Rosson. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth, Roland Young, Elsa Peterson. 35mm, b/w, 116 min.

Dynamite (1929)

Director Cecil B. DeMille's first all-talking picture, also released in a silent version, features a pampered society girl who will lose her trust fund if she isn't married and living with her husband by a certain date—unless he dies before, in which case she keeps the cash. Strategically selecting a death row inmate, her world is turned upside down when the man is freed and turns up at her penthouse to live up to his vows.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Screenwriter: Jeanie Mcpherson. Cinematographer: Peverell Marley. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Conrad Nagel, Kay Johnson, Charles Bickford, Julia Faye, Joel McCrea. 16mm, b/w, 128 min.

Preceded by

The Ten Commandments Promotional Film (1956)

Cecil B. DeMille shows clips from his forthcoming film, and discusses its making.

35mm, color, approx. 12 min.

Part of:

The Greatest Showman: Cecil B. DeMille

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Madam Satan / Dynamite

Madam Satan (1930)

Dynamite (1929)

The Ten Commandments Promotional Film (1956)

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