Satan Met a Lady
Directed by William Dieterle
Written by Brown Holmes based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett
1936/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing
[box] Valerie Purvis: Do you mind very much, Mr. Shane, taking off your hat in the presence of a lady with a gun?[/box]
This is an adaptation of The Maltese Falcon with all the character names changed and the quarry changed to a medieval ram’s horn stuffed with jewels. It’s all played for laughs. I will identify the cast by their Maltese Falcon names: Warren William as Sam Spade; Bette Davis as Ruth Wonderly/Bridget O’Shaughnessy; Arthur Treacher as Joel Cairo; Allison Skipworth as Kasper Gutman; Maynard Holmes as Wilbur; and Porter Hall as Miles Archer.
I thought this was pretty bad. Warren William seems to be laughing at his own little joke the entire time. The whole thing is really very silly. This is the kind of thing Bette Davis was probably fighting to stay out of at Warners.
Trailer
Horrible beyond words. Even if we had never seen The Maltese Falcon, this would still be a stinker. I think but am not sure that this is the second remake of this story before the classic Bogart film. I think Ricardo Cortez was in it but I haven’t looked it up yet. Probably not a good film either even though I rather liked Cortez. He played Perry Mason in one film (can’t think of the name but you can find it) and played it the way the part was written by Gardner….a little bit dishonest and a lover of all women. He does a good job. You ought to look for it just to see the difference between him and Raymond Burr.
The Ricardo Cortez version was a masterpiece compared to this bomb!