Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Mae West: A-Mae-Zing Toast

MAE WEST is bejeweled and ready to party hearty. Are you? Smile and enjoy it all.
• • On Saturday, 31 December 1927 at Club Deauville • •
• • Mae West spent New Year's Eve on Saturday night, 31 December 1927, entertaining a crowd.
• • The nonfiction book "The Year the World Went Mad" is exclusively focused on the most vibrant events and the most fascinating individuals of 1927. Author Allen Churchill wrote: "Another New York night club listed a gala unveiling for New Year's Eve. This was Mae West's Club Deauville, at Park Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street. Here a New Year's Eve Supper was advertised for a cover charge of ten dollars. Together with this went "A Program of Distinctive and Unique Entertainment Conceived and Directed by the Distinguished Star in Person." ... How we wish we knew more.
• • On Wednesday, 31 December 2014 • •
• • Wishing all of our readers a very happy and safe and wonderful New Year's Eve.
• • Around the World with Mae West • •
• • Did you know you could find Mae West in Alaska? There is a location popular with fishermen called Mae West Lake in Valdez-Cordova.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Her take-off on Eva Tanguay, the unrestrained, hippy favorite of soldiers, sailors, college boys and tired business men of that day, invariably won her the greatest applause. It practically gave Mae West her start in show business.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Lady Godiva was the greatest gambler. She put everything she had on a horse."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Guardian mentioned Mae West.
• • Chris Petit wrote:  Compared to Brando, Beatty or Granger, Mae West was a paragon of the Protestant work ethic. Few worked harder in Hollywood. Her famous sexual innuendo and throwaway style were the products of much rewriting and rehearsal. She remains a theatrical, and rather Victorian, figure and the film career was limited by censorship battles and studio politics . . .
• • Source: Article in The Guardian [UK]; published on Saturday, 31 December 2005
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 10th anniversary • •    
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during this past decade. Yesterday we entertained 1,430 visitors. 
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3082nd 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 circa 1934

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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Mae West: Pulled It Off

In 1966, a London movie house was reviving a MAE WEST movie at the end of December. The Spectator's man on the aisle wrote this appreciation of "Goin' to Town." Let's enjoy it again.
• • "Come Back, Mae" • •
• • "Goin' to Town" (National Film Theatre, December 31) • •
• • Nothing is to be more sternly resisted than critical moping about the good old days. To the plaintive bleat that they don't make them like that any more, the only honest answer is that they never really did. All the same, in a week when the cinema has laid itself out — — flat out, one might almost say — — to entertain, it must (in accuracy) be reported that no one really pulled it off except Mae West, vintage 1935, in "Goin' to Town."
• • As a vehicle for its overflowing star, this is perhaps slightly on the skimpy side: sixty-seven incredibly brisk minutes, which see Mae as a cattle rustler's widow with an eye on her own idea of high society, lurching like some great over-masted galleon through two husbands, a charity opera performance at which she recklessly decides to take on the role of Delilah, a Pygmalion tea party for the local dowagers, and a slight case of shooting.
• • 'Where did I see your lovely face before?' stammers one besotted admirer. 'Just where you see it now,' counters the imperturbably realistic Miss West. 'We're intellectual opposites,' she tells someone else in a burst of self-appraisal. 'I'm intellectual; you're opposite.'
• • And in the context of her own script, with one broadside after another to crumple lesser actors, she is unassailably right. The trick, not only of Mae West but of her age in the cinema, would seem to be the mixture of total self-confidence with wild naivete. Anyone who flung Mae West on to the screen — — no doubt standing carefully back from the blast — — knew just what he was doing. By contrast, one is struck by how difficult it seems these days to produce not art (that can more or less look after itself) but plain entertainment. Producers have grown wary and fidgety, worried by the knowingness of the audience, always hedging their bets.
• • It's not that they don't make them like that any more: it's that they can't. Present a modern producer with anyone as unequivocal as Mae West, and he would have to fight an almost irresistible urge to surround her with several hundred acres of scenery and a couple of juveniles for the teenage audience. In its casual, rackety way, "Goin' to Town" knew exactly how to cope with its star as the great American primitive, the woman not to be tamed by a feather boa.
• • Source: Film Review on page 14 in The Spectator [UK]; published on Friday,  30 December 1966.
• • On Monday, 30 December 1912 • •
• • On Monday, 30 December 1912 the singing comedienne was giving a double performance at 7:30 PM and at 11:00 PM at B.F. Keith's Union Square Theatre on Fourteenth Street. Featured on the bill, along with the 19-year-old hopeful, was a great deal of variety. Britain's Laddie Cliff offered new songs and eccentric dances; Phina and company entertained; Alfredo (wandering wizard of the violin) played; Asaki presented his juggling act, so popular in Japan; and gymnasts Lydia and Albino did . . . something.
• • On Saturday, 30 December 1933 • •
• • Picturegoer, a British publication sold in movie houses, ran a three part series: "Making Love to Mae West." The first installment ran on 10 December 1933, it continued on Saturday, 30 December 1993, and the final portion appeared on 6 January 1934.
• • Cary Grant's byline appeared. The actor either wrote it or (perhaps) merely signed it.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • "Tropicana" — — Gregory Ratoff and Mae West (Columbia) just completed shooting with Xavier Cugat.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Sex in grandma's day was always quaint."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A Singapore newspaper printed an interview with Mae West.
• • On Sunday, 30 December 1934 that the final installment of "The Story of Mae West" was published in The Straits Times.
• • John C. Moffitt, who interviewed the movie queen several times during the 1930s, titled his in-depth piece "The High Priestess of Hokum."
• • Source: Article in The Straits Times; published on Sunday, 30 December 1934 
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 10th anniversary • •    
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during this past decade. Yesterday we entertained 1,430 visitors. 
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3081st 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 in 1935

• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
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Monday, December 29, 2014

Mae West: Ottawa Booking

The Canadian vaudeville booking for MAE WEST was announced in the New York Clipper on Saturday, 27 December 1913.  Notice that Mae was still touring as a single in late December. However, during 1914 she would team up with the Italian accordionist and composer Guido Deiro for months of well-paid joint engagements on the variety artists' circuit of big time vaudeville.
• • "Next Week's Bills: December 29, 1913 — January 8, 1914" • •
• • U.B.O. Time • •
• • Ottawa, Can. — Dominion Theatre — Britt Wood — Vandinoff and Louie —Chas. Prelle's Dogs — Imhoff, Conn, and Coreene — Leitzel and Jeanette — Nevins and Erwood — Mae West.
• • On Sunday, 29 December 1912 • •
• • In the Sunday morning newspapers on 29 December 1912, readers noticed that B.F. Keith was offering "Dinkelspiel's Christmas" along with "MAY WEST — singing comedienne" [yes, the newspaper spelled it "MAY WEST" in their 29 December 1912 ad].
• • The 14th Street theatre is, alas, long gone but we can only imagine how much fun we missed since, alas, we were not around to dial STuyvesant 3400 to reserve a ticket.
• • On Wednesday, 29 December 1937 • •
• • Variety did an article on the ill-fated broadcast Mae did on NBC: "Mae West Case Big Dilemma in Washington."  This piece was printed in Variety on Wednesday, 29 December 1937.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • "My Old Flame" will be introduced by Mae West, with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, in her next picture "Belle of the Nineties."
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said:  "Call me anything, but call me often."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An Illinois newspaper mentioned Mae West.
• • "Yule Party was a Merry Affair" • •
• • True Republican wrote:  For the best costumed women, the first prize was given to Mrs. Lois Kingsnorth, costumed as Mae West. The second prize went to Dorothy Bartlett, wearing a clever costume depicting rationing troubles, and the third to Mrs. Laverne Weddiger, dressed as an old-fashioned lady . . .
• • Source: Item in True Republican Illinois); published on Tuesday, 29 December 1942 
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 10th anniversary • •    
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during this past decade. Yesterday we entertained 1,430 visitors. 
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3080th 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 in 1914

• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
  Mae West