The Three Faces of The Maltese Falcon Part 2: Satan Met a Lady (1936)

Dashiell Hammett’s best-selling mystery novels became even hotter than ever when Hollywood adapted them for the silver screen.  The Maltese Falcon was now reworked into a screwball comedy, Satan Met a Lady (1936), starring Bette Davis and Warren William.  Like they say, if works, milk it for all its worth!  I kind of think of this version as Maltese Falcon 2, Sam Spade’s playful, mischievous sister. Still, I must admit I have a personal soft spot for this particular …Lady, because this film was:

1. The first movie Vinnie and I saw after our daughter Siobhan (“Shugie” to our loved ones) was born in New York City, in 1996.  This also meant that:
2. It was also the first movie I had ever watched on Turner Classic Movies. I think folks were still calling it Turner Classic Movies instead of TCM at the time! 

NYU Medical Center, the Manhattan hospital where Shugie was born, had its own cable TV system, and the channels included TCM (Grease was on, as I recall).  Interestingly, the hospital also happened to have a TV channel where they seemed to constantly run 101 Dalmatians (yes, the original animated Disney version; accept no substitutes!).  A visiting friend quipped that a film about puppies in peril in a plot to kidnap Dalmatian puppies might not be the best film  choice for an anxious new mom…but I digress!
Many people bad-mouth Satan Met a Lady, but I think it’s only because many people don’t seem to realize this version is supposed to be played for laughs!

From the start, I found Satan Met a Lady to be madcap fun, starting with our own Sam Spade manqué Ted Shane (William) , who’s being run out of town almost literally on a rail.  William Dieterle (Portrait of Jennie; The Devil and Daniel Webster) worked from Brown Holmes’ screenplay, but this time they made a few changes to make it more rib-tickling.  This was also where Arthur Edeson practiced for his future stint as The Maltese Falcon’s Director of Photography, as an assistant on Satan Met a Lady.

Fun Fact:  Ricardo Cortez and Warren William each played Perry Mason in the movies (no, not the same movie; see, I told you he was racy!).

Bette Davis as “The Beautiful Valerie Purvis:
“Do you mind very much, Mr. Shane, taking off
your hat in the presence of a lady with a gun?”

But it’s a fresh young *Bette Davis* who gets top billing here as wily Valerie Purvis, or as she’s often described: “The beautiful Valerie Purvis” (any relation to G-Man Melvin Purvis, John Dillinger’s foe?).  Played by the fabulous Ms. Davis, she could be Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s witty, bantering sister.  Satan Met a Lady and The Maltese Falcon have more in common besides being loosely inspired by the same Dashiell Hammett novel: in Satan Met a Lady, our rakish hero is played by Warren William from Three on a Match; the 1930s Perry Mason movies; and Gold Diggers of 1933, among others.  William plays racy detective Ted Shane, a man so racy that the spelling of his name sometimes plays hide-and-seek.   Maybe it’s to keep his creditors at bay!

Shane gives The Lovely Valerie Purvis her gun,
a kiss, and a promise!

They say it’s always five o’clock somewhere, but in…Lady, William always looks and acts like a fun-loving troublemaker no matter what time it is!   Sheesh, Shane’s even more of a tomcat than Ricardo Cortez was in 1931!  William and Davis play off each other most enjoyably as they seek out, not The Maltese Falcon, but rather an ancient ram’s horn rumored to be stuffed with fabulous jewels.  They’re aided and abetted by a rambunctious supporting cast, including:

Will Shane and Travers have to pass the hat
to get the legendary Ram’s Horn? 

*Arthur Treacher* —  I must confess I first knew who Treacher was from his Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips franchise in the 1970s, with its tag line “The Meal You Cannot Make at Home,” as well as seeing him on the big screen at our local bijou in Mary Poppins when I was a kid.  Appropriately enough, in Satan Met a Lady, Treacher plays another character named Travers—what are the odds?  Here, Treacher is transformed from a Peter Lorre type to Travers, a somewhat bumbling English gentleman crook.

*Alison Skipworth* — Often paired with W.C. Fields, Ms. Skipworth began her career on Broadway, and continued in such films as The Devil is a Woman and Dangerous (both in 1935). “Skippy,” as her friends and colleagues called her, essentially gets a sex change here, since her character was originally Kaspar Gutman.  I like Ms. Skipworth’s take on the character, the jolly yet slyly dangerous Madame Barabbas; even her Biblical name is cool!   Shane and Madame Barabbas have something of a friendly-adversary relationship.  I got a kick out of the scene where each of them proved the other each was too clever to let the other one slip them a Mickey Finn.

*Porter Hall*  — The ill-fated Miles Archer and his restless wife Iva in The Maltese Falcon are now Mr. and Mrs. Ames, played briefly but entertainingly by Hall, best known here at Team Bartilucci HQ as Macaulay in The Thin Man, and Jackson, the “Medford Man” in Double Indemnity.   Ames’ hot wife Astrid—soon to be Ames’ widow— is played by lovely big-band singer/actress *Wini Shaw,* popular on stage and screen, including her success on The Ziegfeld Follies and her Broadway triumph in Call Me Madame!

Don’t  let buffoonish  “Kenny-Boy” and his silly beanie fool you,
 he’s a killer!  Would his Auntie Madame Barrabbas lie to you? 

*Maynard  Holmes*  —  Instead of gunsel Wilmer, Madame Barabbas’ sharpshooting right-hand man is her obnoxious, buffoonish, beret-wearing nephew Kenneth, or as his Auntie calls him, “Kenny Boy.”  Hey, at least he loved cats!  Holmes was also in Dead Reckoning; Somewhere in the Night; The Lady from Shanghai (though he unfortunately didn’t get screen credit).

*Marie Wilson*  —   Of all the wacky characters in Satan Met a Lady, my favorite was Marie Wilson  redoing trusty secretary/receptionist Effie Perine as the endearing cutie Miss Murgatroyd, a cheerful blonde uber-ditz.  Her cute little squeak of surprise/distress always cracks me up!  Both her film versions and TV versions of My Friend Irma were smashing successes, in addition to her voice work on the 1970 animated Hanna-Barbera sports comedy Where’s Huddles?

*Olin Howland* was a character actor from the silent era until Howland’s death in 1959.  I myself always enjoyed Howland in his 1930s Perry Mason films, often playing Coroner Wilbur Strong or Dr. Croker.  (Don’t you just love these names?) He was also a scene stealer in THEM! as the drunk offering our heroes to “Make me a Sergeant, charge the booze!”, as well as the ill-fated old man in The Blob.

Zesty quips abound, including:

Valerie:  “Do you mind very much Mr. Shane, taking off your hat in the presence of a lady with a gun?”

Shane, discovering Ames has been murdered: “It’s the first time he ever did anything in an appropriate place.”

Shane (cheerfully) to Miss Murgatroyd when it seems she’ll be out in the cold with no job:  “Have you finished packing all your things?...And all the things that weren’t yours, but that you thought you could use?

Miss Murgatroyd: (flustered): “Yes—um, I mean, I’m all packed.”