Mae West: Eddie Borden

MAE WEST worked twice with Eddie Borden, who was seen in "I'm No Angel" [1933] as an amusing carnival sideshow spectator who ogles "Tira the Incomparable" in her provocative costume — — and was cast the following year as a comedian in "Belle of the Nineties" [1934].
• • Born in Deer Lodge, Tennessee on the first day in May — — on 1 May 1888 — — the funnyman launched his career as a variety artist, then gave up vaudeville for the screen trade. The five-foot-nine actor had a number of feature roles when he first landed in Tinseltown but gradually became a bit parts player. After his start in Hollywood in 1922, Eddie Borden appeared in 142 motion pictures, the last one being "Holiday for Sinners" [1952], a title that sounds tailor-made for Mae West. Eddie Borden died at age 67 on the first day of July (on 1 July 1955) in Hollywood, California.
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The play's the thing. Until Hollywood gets hold of it. Movie reviewer Digby Ricci has written an insightful column on how Tinseltown's directors have marred scenes in classic stage plays — — and here is one of his examples.
• • South African columnist Digby Ricci writes: Often, when watching film-versions of well-known plays, one wishes to yell, like an irate parent, “Stay indoors!” for the “opening out” of a play seldom fails to damage it. Even Elia Kazan’s great film-version of “Streetcar” — — I celebrated its sixtieth anniversary in a recent column — — makes one silly slip, when Kazan allows us to accompany Blanche and Mitch on their date. Nothing , of course, could spoil Vivien Leigh’s delivery of the great guilt-stricken monologue about the suicide of Blanche’s youthful husband (“He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl”), but what a pity it is that the scene does not begin, as it does in Williams’s play, with Blanche and Mitch returning, exhausted and depressed, to the Kowalskis’ apartment, with Mitch bearing — — a wonderful visual irony — — “a plaster statuette of Mae West, the sort of prize won at shooting-galleries and carnival games of chance”. ...
• • Source: Movie Monocle: The Pitfalls of ‘OPENING OUT’ by Digby Ricci for NewsTime; posted on 29 April 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 1917th blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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