Mae West: Another Straw

A very long article about MAE WEST and her career in Tinseltown appeared five years ago.  It was written by Paul Phaneuf. Let's pick this up again and enjoy it together. This is Part 61.
• • Mae West: "I'm here to make talkies" or Censor Will vs. Diamond Lil • •
• • the "Ernst Lubitsch touch" • •
• • Paul Phaneuf wrote:  Mae obviously didn't care for the "Lubitsch touch."
• • Added to this mix, there had been recent government hearings about "block-booking", which was a way of bundling weaker films with hit films into a single package, forcing the exhibitor to screen dogs or other films they did not want. The Motion Picture Herald reported: "Mae West was the real issue in the arguments in Washington before a Senate sub-committee to abolish block booking." Some exhibitors contended that "compulsory block-booking forces exhibitors to play Mae West pictures or else pay and not play which, they added, they could not afford to do." This may have been another straw to break Paramount's back, and Mae's contract.
• • The Short End of the Deal • •  . . .
• • This was Part 61.  Part 62 will appear  tomorrow.
• • Source:  Article by Paul Phaneuf in Films of the Golden Age Magazine;  issue dated 5  November 2011. Used with permission.
• • On Tuesday, 10 April 1928 in The N.Y. Times • •
• • The New York Times reported on "Diamond Lil" on Tuesday, 10 April 1928 on page 32. The review carried this headline "'DIAMOND LIL' IS LURID AND OFTEN STIRRING" and a sub-title "Mae West's Melodrama at the Royale Suffers From a Bad Third Act."
• • Despite the caveat about the last act, there was praise. The critic from The Times noted: "Miss West has a fine and direct way of approaching that subject" — — i.e., sex — — "that is almost Elizabethan. If you can stay in the theatre, you are likely to enjoy it."
• • Opposite the coverage, on page 33, was a small advertisement for the play at the Royale Theatre.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •

• • The Salvador Dali artwork "Mae West's Face which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment, 1934 — 1935" was on display in Philadelphia at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said:   "I beat men at their own game. I don't look down on men but I certainly don't look up to them either. I never found a man I could love — — or trust — —  the way I love myself."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An academic seminar mentioned Mae West.
• • Final Programme for "Turning The Page: Digitalization, movie magazines and historical audience studies," Ghent, November 2015
• • Alissa Clarke, DeMontfort University:  In Bed with Mae West: Movie Magazine Revelations of the Boudoir as Creative, Training and Central Scenic Space
• • Source: Item on the program; posted in November 2015
• • 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 3678th 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 1934 • •
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