Madame Satan 1930
Claudette Colbert in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross. 1932.
We watched this last night and the film is complete insanity. Full of sex, violence, disemboweled little people, near naked women being torn apart by crocodiles. And all with a wholesome Christian message.
The inamorato just informed me that this is coming up soon on his Netflix queue. I am so pleased.
Notable moments in pre-Code Hollywood: The Sign of the Cross (1932), in which Cecil B. DeMille re-created in sadistic detail the excesses of the “Arena Games” in Nero’s Rome.
Highlights include gladiator vs. bear wrestling matches, Amazonian women beheading pygmies, and sexy Christian martyrs getting served up to crocodiles, lions, and gorillas for the entertainment of spectators (many of these scenes were cut by censors after the Production Code went into effect, but have since been restored).
