Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Mae West: Eternal Character

In her review of "Klondike Annie," Elizabeth Yeaman commented, "She is the same MAE WEST of all previous pictures." Yeaman's article "Big Crowds View Star's New Picture" was published in the Hollywood Citizen News on Friday, 28 February 1936.
• • Mae West — — Eternal Character • •
• • Interestingly, halfway across the world in Australia, the same opinion was being expressed at the end of February in 1936. One newspaper in Perth, announcing that "Goin' to Town" was about to debut there, wrote this: Paramount's "Now I'm a Lady," which comes to the Grand Theatre next Friday, brings Mae West back to the screen to win new laurels as a modern belle with ultra modern ideas. The costumes worn by Miss West in this motion picture are dashing and new, the situations are as up-to-date as tomorrow's newspapers, the backgrounds might even be termed ultra-modern, but Mae West is still the same — — grand Mae West. Shrewd, ingenious, robust, and full of sly humor and observation, she proves again that she is not necessarily a girl of the "Naughty Nighties" but an eternal character.
• • All these rosy reviews may have disguised the thorns that nettled the movie star. Will Hays was still sending scorching letters to Joseph Breen about "Klondike Annie."
• • Worse yet, scrappy opportunist Frank Wallace had realized his former wife was a goldmine and got out his pickaxe. On Friday, 28 February 1936, Mae West told a reporter: "The guy's trying to cash in again! I got a new picture out and he's pulling the same stunt he pulled the last time one was released."
• • February 1934 in the Hollywood Reporter • •
• • The Hollywood Reporter ran an article: "Mae West Captures Paris Fans."
• • They wrote: Mae West has taken Paris like the revolutionists took the Bastille. "I'm No Angel" is packing them in at Gaumont-Elysee, with long lines being turned away daily.
• • The Hollywood Reporter also ran this article in February 1934: "Mae West Not So Hot In Icy Stockholm."
• • A Stockholm reviewer wrote: The Swedes can't get the slant of America and England on Mae West in "She Done Him Wrong." Censorship board had to view picture twice before making up its mind. Now, while picture is doing well, critics and patrons don't care so much either for the subject matter of the film, or for the wiggles of Mae.
• • The Hollywood Reporter ran this interesting item, too: "Prinz Quits Paramount With Indie Pic Plans." Mae West was going to be a puppet. The article explained: Leroy Prinz, who has been at Paramount for the past year directing musical numbers, has handed in his resignation and plans to go into independent production. Prinz plans on making a series of shorts with puppets. The puppets are to be patterned after screen characters. He has already finished the first short, with the Mae West character featured.
• • On Friday, 28 February 2003 • •
• • In London, England Dr. James Pitt-Payne (in association with Doug Grierson) did a sequence and karaoke of "Good Night Nurse" by Mae West from 1912. Music by W. Raymond Walker; lyrics by Thomas J. Gray; copyright MCMXII by Jerome H. Remick and Co., N.Y. and Boston. You can download the midi of "Good Night Nurse" from his web site. The men completed this project on Friday, 28 February 2003 at 00.21.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Sometimes a little lie will save a lot of trouble."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article about the Oscars mentioned Mae West.
• • Ireland's Daily Edge wrote: As Hollywood prepares for the biggest night on its calendar, TheJournal.ie looks back over some of the bigger controversies to have struck the Academy Awards show through the years, from a racy rendition of "Baby It’s Cold Outside" in the late 1950s to Marlon Brando’s award refusal in 1973. . . . Rock Hudson and Mae West caused a stir with their ‘kingsize’ rendition of "Baby It’s Cold Outside" at the 1957 awards show . . .
• • Source: Article: "Video: 5 of the biggest Oscar night controversies" printed in The Daily Edge, Dublin, Ireland; published on Sunday, 26 February 2012
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2223nd 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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• • Photo: • • Mae West • 1936 • •
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