Mae Redux: 12 December 1937

Applause for Patrick Horne, a 27-year-old filmmaker from North Carolina who may not yet know how to spell "Chase & Sanborn," but who revived the famous 1937 radio skit from Edgar Bergen's program in a new 18-minute film. And a Christian actress Patrick Horne cast viewed ONE — — yes, just one Mae West film to prepare for her role as the temptress Eve in Arch Obler's "Garden of Eden" parody that got the Brooklyn Bombshell banned from the airwaves. Author Arch Obler was neither fined nor banned, however. Perhaps thinking of her hometown, Mae West tells the serpent, "I feel like doin' a Big Apple." Mae's suggestive adlibbing with ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy also outraged the advertisers, who began firing up phonecalls before the 60-minute segment ended. Is this section included in the 18-minute adaptation? Stay tuned.
• • • Film recreates scandalous '37 radio show • • •
By Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane, Staff Writer
GREENSBORO -- The scene: Dec. 12, 1937, in a Hollywood radio studio.
• • Stars Mae West and Don Ameche perform a comic takeoff on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden during the live radio broadcast of "The Chase and Sanbourn [sic] Hour."
• • Ameche has been told that West will play Eve straight, without her signature suggestive nuances. She doesn't. Her burlesque, ad-libbed delivery brings a nationwide uproar, an FCC condemnation and the end of West's radio appearances.
• • The scene: Saturday at The Scene on South Elm, a downtown performance space [in North Caolina], 68-plus years later.
• • Filmmaker Patrick Horne has turned the interior into a tiny Garden of Eden. His cast and crew film a movie re-enacting that infamous radio broadcast.
• • When complete, Horne plans to submit his 18-minute movie to film festivals and to the Sundance Channel, a cable network that airs independent films.
• • Horne, 27, and his company, "Speak-It!" Pictures, are part of the Triad's growing community of young filmmakers.
• • He envisioned this film after hearing a recording of the 1937 radio show and researching the controversy.
• • "I don't think 1930s America was ready for this script," Horne says.
• • "All of this anger was directed at a woman who was just having fun with the script. I think we are putting right what was once wrong, and giving the broadcast a new dimension for audiences that can now accept it."
• • He selected actor Leanne Bernard of Cary to play Mae West, and Elon University sophomore John Say to portray Don Ameche.
• • Adding a campy twist, he asked female impersonator James Rainey to play actor Dorothy Lamour, who sings in the broadcast before the skit.
• • Kevin Chamberlain came from Ohio to play Wendell Niles, the radio announcer. While students together at Ohio University, Chamberlain and Horne worked on a short film that won Horne a regional Emmy in 2002.
• • Horne himself played the snake in the Garden of Eden.
• • Actors dressed and acted their parts, but lip-synched their lines to the original broadcast.
• • To prepare, they had listened to the original show repeatedly to get their timing just right.
• • Bernard wanted to capture West's mannerisms - - hands on hips, eyes frequently casting left, her pauses, her suggestive smile. So she watched her 1940 film, "My Little Chickadee."
• • "I just thought it was so intriguing to play such a glamorous icon in movie history," Bernard said as makeup artist Kenzie Clark curled Bernard's hair, West-style.
• • Say said he was attracted to participate by Horne's unique concept, and to add a movie role to his acting credits.
• • "I think this will get noticed for its originality," Say said.
• • To re-create West, Bernard donned a red sequined and feather-trimmed gown. Say wore a suit to introduce West and Niles at the start, then switched to a costume of fake fig leaves.
• • In the skit, Eve is bored in the Garden of Eden. But Adam won't leave the good life. Adam tells her that they'll be evicted if they eat fruit from the appletree. So Eve recruits a snake to squeeze through a picket fence to steal an apple.
• • "I'm, I'm stuck!" the snake says in one suggestive exchange.
• • "Oh, shake your hips," Eve says. "There there, now you're through!"
• • Before she auditioned for the Mae West role, Bernard said, she heard that the radio broadcast had been controversial.
• • "Being a Christian, I was a little intimidated," she said.
• • "But once I read the script, I realized it had been judged by standards back then," she said.
• • "By today's standards, it's not scandalous at all."
BY: Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane [T. 373-5204; E. dkane@news-record.com]
Published: Sunday 26 March 2006
© 2006 News & Record 200 East Market Street, Greensboro, NC 27401
336-373-7000 or 800-553-6880
• • http://www.news-record.com/ • •
• • Speak It! Pictures, LLP • Tel: 336.253.1644
Production Office Address: 1006 Walker Avenue, Suite 8; Greensboro, NC 27403
• • Patrick Horne - patrickontheplanet@hotmail.com
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Mae West
• • Photo • Mae West • in 1937
NYC
Mae West.