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Peek inside Cecil B. DeMille’s bizarro 1930 master-flop, ‘Madam Satan’
08.14.2015
11:10 am
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Madam Satan movie poster, 1930
Madam Satan movie poster, 1930
 
Cecil B. DeMille was a peculiar, yet lovable, producer of Hollywood balderdash, and Madam Satan just might be his most bizarro film.
 
Kay Johnson as Madam Satan
Actress Kay Johnson as the alluring “Madam Satan”
 
The black and white film came out in 1930 and had originally contained Technicolor scenes that were sadly somehow lost. Despite its occult-sounding title, Madam Satan is a vintage romcom that tells the story of a married couple, Angela and Bob, who are having a relationship crisis. When Angela finds out that her husband is screwing around with a chick named Trixie, she creates an alter-ego of herself called “Madam Satan.”
 
Actor heodore Kosloff in Madam Satan, 1930
Actor Theodore Kosloff as “Electricity” in Madam Satan
 
After Madam Satan makes her debut at wild masquerade ball, the film just gets weirder and more wonderfully excessive as it goes along. There are elaborate song and dance routines, flirtations with electricity, and actors dressed in boundary-pushing and visually stunning costumery (much of which was created by the head of wardrobe for DeMille’s studio, Adrian Adolph Greenburg) that were far beyond their time. Madam Satan is truly a film that must be seen to be believed. A remastered version of Madam Satan was released on DVD in 2010 and I highly recommend tracking down a copy so you can see it for yourself. You can also take a peek at more stills from Madam Satan, as well as a clip from the movie that will likely induce a good old-fashioned case of the bed-spins. Hail Satan!
 
Madam Satan actress Kay Johnson strikes a pose with her masks
Madam Satan star Kay Johnson strikes a pose with her masks
 
A strange chorus line from Madam Satan
A strange chorus line of cats from Madam Satan
 
More great stills from the curious classic after the jump…...
 

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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08.14.2015
11:10 am
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Own the Ten Commandments, no big whoop


 
An actual surviving pair of prop tablets from the epic Cecil B. DeMille/Charlton Heston film The Ten Commandments is up for auction on eBay. View the auction here.

” WRITTEN BY THE FINGER OF G-D “ AND  CONSTRUCTED OF  HAND HEWN FIBERGLASS OVER A WOOD BACKING  AS CARRIED BY CHARLTON HESTON AS MOSES FROM MOUNT SINAI.

THESE TABLETS WERE CREATED UNDER DE MILLE’S WATCHFULL EYE AND WITH GREAT DETAIL BY PARAMOUNT PICTURES SCENIC ARTIS A.J. CIRAOLO WHO MADE THEM TO RESEMBLE CARVED GRANITE WITH IRREGULAR CHIPS, CRATERS AND VARIOUS IMPERFECTIONS SO THAT THEY WERE RESEMBLED TO BE CARVED WITH  “G-D’S FIRE BOLTS “...   ( It was De Mille’s attention to detail led this film to be the most expensive film of its day )

THIS IS ONE OF THE SETS [CIRAOLO] KEPT AFTER THE PRODUCTION AND WAS LEFT WITH HIS FAMILY FOR ALMOST FIFTY YEARS.

 

 
What more could one need in life? You can own the Ten Commandments. Wanna rain some wrath-of-God-ass shit down on your enemies for their heretical apostasies? THE POWER CAN BE IN YOUR HANDS! Wanna hang ‘em in a school in Alabama? NOBODY CAN STOP YOU! Feel like adding some of your own a la Moral Orel?

Thou shalt not make douchey orgasm faces whilst thou guitar soloest.

Thou shalt break it off with thine S.O. before, not after, thou schtuppest his or her bestie.

If whilst driving thou seest a pedestrian clad in a Slayer shirt, thou shalt roll down thine window and yellest ‘SLAYER!’

You can do that, THEY’RE YOUR COMMANDMENTS!
 

Yeah, go ahead, FUCK WITH ME!

OK, tone shift, here. I’d like to leave you with a very cool thing: Cecil B. DeMille himself appears in and narrates this short film about reconstructing the life of Moses.
 

 
Previously:
Captain Beefheart’s Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing
The Ten Commandments of Bowieism
Hopeless Republicans: Ten Commandments Judge to Enter Race?

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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02.28.2014
09:47 am
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