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THE SORROWS OF SATAN 177
Griffith directing; and they had four stars in the cast— Menjou, Ricardo Cortez, Carol Dempster, and Lya de Putti. How could a combination like that miss? This was strictly motion-picture thinking. If vintage champagne, twelve-year-old Scotch, and fine bonded bourbon are mixed, all you get is a headache, and that's what The Sorrows of Satan was.
Mr. Griffith started out with big ideas for a lot of supernatural scenes in the picture— scenes that depended on trick photography and special effects. His ideas were very exciting to talk about, but unfortunately they were technically ahead of their time. I was to make my first appearance during a big garden party. Thunder and lightning were to frighten the guests, and then the heavens were to part and I was to come zooming down from the sky with wings flapping and tail swishing. But I was supposed to be visible only to the audience. The actors couldn't see me until, in the twinkling of an eye and a blinding lightning flash, my devils trappings had vanished and been replaced by white tie and tails. What a scene! There he stands, the suave and distinguished Menjou, and only the audience knows that actually he is old Satan himself! That sort of hocus-pocus makes great selling talk at a story conference but plenty of grief when it comes time to shoot it.
The costume department made a devil's costume for me with mechanical wings that flapped in the breeze. When I got dressed up in it, I felt more foolish than I ever had in my life. The stage crew attached a couple of piano wires to a harness that went under my costume; then I was hoisted into the flies and the shooting started. We shot for about four days while I dangled from wires and developed saddlesores on my ribs from being jerked and hauled through the air.
The Sorrows of Satan took about six months to shoot. But when it was finally assembled in the cutting room, all the supernatural stuff was out. For when the sky was supposed to open up and the devil come winging down to earth, it just looked phony and ludicrous. And when I was supposed to walk through doors