Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Mae West: Soul Struggle

A very long article about MAE WEST and her career in Tinseltown appeared five years ago.  It was written by Paul Phaneuf. Let's enjoy it together. This is Part 40.
• • Mae West: "I'm here to make talkies" or Censor Will vs. Diamond Lil • •
• • tossed some garters out • •  
• • Paul Phaneuf wrote:   Also missing: a dance number in which she tossed some garters out to her audience; her affair with ex-football star turned actor Johnny Mack Brown; and a lengthy romantic tryst with the Kid that had originally lasted for five days (shown through a montage) and was now reduced to one evening with the Kid quickly ducking out her door after a barely three-minute scene together. And of course Ruby Carter's colorful background had been eliminated.
• • Watching it today you can easily see the picture's rhythm is thrown off by missing scenes, quick editing, and plot lines that disappear. The film also included one of Mae's most potent scenes in all her films; her rendition of the Negro spiritual "Troubled Waters" as she watches a black preacher, Brother Eben, hold a revival meeting. It's an affirmation of the struggle in her soul between vice and virtue, and it's one of the most heartfelt moments she put on screen, and a reply to her moral critics.
• • suffered from interference • •  . . .
• • This was Part 40. We are taking a little break from this. Part 41 will appear next week.
• • Source:  Article by Paul Phaneuf in Films of the Golden Age Magazine;  issue dated 5  November 2011. Used with permission.
• • On Tuesday, 28 February 1933 • •
• • An article on Mae's staying power — — "Paramount's Unusual 3d Week for Mae West" — — was printed in Variety on Tuesday, 28 February 1933.
• • 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.  Great fun!
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Sure, Mae West was in “big money," without doubt, getting approximately $2,010 a week.  But weren’t other stars getting more?
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said:   "I'm much too busy to worry about the censor boards. ... If they don’t like me, well, that’s their business. In 'I'm No Angel' only one line was deleted by the censors, and that’s my business."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A Hollywood fan magazine mentioned Mae West.
• • Has Mae West Reformed? • •
• • Lew Garvey wrote: Mae West has hit the sawdust trail. Ever since she played the lady evangelist in "Klondike Annie," the Pleasure Lady of the Screen has been undergoing a noticeable moral transformation . . .
• • Source: Article in Hollywood Magazine; published in August 1936
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 12th anniversary • •  
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past eleven years. The other day we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 3,500 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3649th
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/
________

Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml   

• • Photo:
• • Mae West • with Jack LaRue at a party in 1936

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

Monday, February 27, 2017

Mae West: Mere Stooge

A very long article about MAE WEST and her career in Tinseltown appeared five years ago.  It was written by Paul Phaneuf. Let's enjoy it together. This is Part 39.
• • Mae West: "I'm here to make talkies" or Censor Will vs. Diamond Lil • •
• • This entire scene was excised • •
• • Paul Phaneuf wrote:  Suspected of murder, she was not indicted for lack of evidence; arrested for possessing stolen bonds, the bank president refused to prosecute; when a millionaire disappeared from his yacht on which she was the sole guest, she inherited some of his money, and was acquitted. This entire scene was excised. (However if you look closely at the opening of the film, as the camera pans over the crowd, you'll spot two newspaper headlines reading "Rudy Carter Innocent" and another "Grand Jury Frees Ruby Carter.")
• • Also cut was dialogue from her arrival in New Orleans on a paddle boat, regarding Mae receiving five male visitors to her cabin. In the revised version, the only surviving reference is heard when she disembarks and is being followed by a group of eager men. When asked by someone what all these men want, she answers "Give 'em all my address!"
• • tossed some garters out • •   . . .
• • This was Part 39.  Part 40 will appear tomorrow.
• • Source:  Article by Paul Phaneuf in Films of the Golden Age Magazine;  issue dated 5  November 2011. Used with permission.
• • On Thursday, 27 February 1936 • •
• • Joseph Breen wrote to Will Hays about Mae West and "KIondike Annie." His letter is dated for Thursday, 27 February 1936.
• • Newspapers were aware of the bickering and the chaos. The Los Angeles Herald printed a news story on page 4 about the censorship issues on Thursday, 27 February 1936. It was never easy being Mae West.
• • On Sunday, 27 February 1938 • •
• • On Sunday, 27 February 1938, in Perth Australia, their Sunday Times newspaper echoed the after-shocks of "The Chase and Sanborn Hour" in December 1937: Mae West's un-Scriptural portrayal of Eve in a national broadcast has aroused the wrath of hundreds of American women and infuriated the clergy. They are shocked because, instead of the serpent tempting Eve, as the Book of Genesis records, Mae West tempted the serpent.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Asserting that right is might, Frank Wallace today renewed his efforts to obtain a court order declaring him to be the husband of Mae West, motion picture star.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said:  "It's time someone in Hollywood — — speaking very frankly — — showed what is known as intestinal fortitude. They threaten us in the picture colony under penalty of having acid thrown in our face. And they don't stop at acid threats either. They threaten to kill. It's time someone called their hand. And if it has to be me, I'll do it."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A California daily mentioned Mae West.
• • Mae West Says Little on Row • •
• • (By Associated Press) HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 26. Mae West played a sphinx-like role today as the cross-country debate between Ernst Lubitsch, film producer, and Jim Timony, her business manager, subsided to a mere whisper.
• • The blonde-buxom star had nothing to say when she arrived home with Timony late yesterday after a short visit to Chicago. 
• • She still had nothing to; say when Timony, at her apartment, asserted that "the trouble with Ernst Lubitsch is he's sore because he was dying to direct Mae, himself, in her last picture, and she wouldn't stand for it."
• • Lubitsch, replaced as production chief at Paramount studios, Miss West's home lot, declared at Chicago that dissension between the actress and himself occurred "over my insistence that she give Victor McLaglen a break In 'Klondike Annie'."
• • He added:  "Miss West originally wrote the part and reduced him to a mere 'stooge'." Lubitsch said he would produce and direct three or four pictures a year for Paramount under the new arrangement.  ...
• • Source: Article by Associated Press rpt in San Bernardino Sun; published on Thursday,  27 February 1936
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 12th anniversary • •  
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past eleven years. The other day we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 3,500 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3648th
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/
________

Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml   

• • Photo:
• • Mae West • in 1936

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