Mae West: Imperfect Film

MAE WEST came to the attention of Tinseltown ninety years ago in 1932. Step into the Time Machine with me for a long, leisurely ride. This is Part 44 of 68.
• • Mae West in Hollywood 1932 – 1943 • •
• • Mae West: By no means a perfect film • •
• • Andy Goulding wrote: “Klondike Annie” is by no means a perfect film.

• • Andy Goulding wrote: There’s an immediate “uh-oh” moment when the opening caption reads “San Francisco Chinatown” and, sure enough, there are some immediate awful stereotypes (American actor Harold Huber was hardly born to play the role of Chan Lo).
• • Andy Goulding wrote: But fortunately this sequence largely serves only to set the plot in motion, albeit after a lavish Mae West-led musical number called ‘I’m an Occidental Woman in an Oriental Mood for Love.’
• • Andy Goulding wrote: There’s also the slight sense that, like “She Done Him Wrong” before it, “Klondike Annie” could’ve benefited from a longer runtime to allow its more complex plot to unfold properly.
• • Mae West: The funniest scene • • …
• • This piece will be continued on Wednesday, 23 November 2022.
• • Tomorrow (on November 22nd) there will be our annual memorial post for Mae West, who left us on Sunday, 22 November 1980 but who has never left our hearts.
• • Source: Blueprint Reviews U.K.; posted on Friday, 3 December 2021.
• • On Sunday, 21 November 1948 • •
• • It was on 30 October 1948 that Mae West signed an Actor's Equity Association Stock Jobbing Contract on Equity's letterhead in New York. The Broadway star of "Diamond Lil" was agreeing to a weekly salary of $2,500, and the play would be opening in Montclair, New Jersey in the month of November — — on Sunday, 21 November 1948.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •

• • There is a scene in "Diamond Lil" and also in "She Done Him Wrong" that shows Mae West's character lounging in bed with an issue of the National Police Gazette. Shortly after the release of the 1933 motion picture, Mae was, in fact, featured on the publication's front page.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "A man in the house is worth two in the street."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article in Australia discussed Mae West.
• • "Mae West May Visit Australia" • •
• • Sydney, Tuesday — Negotiations to bring Mae West to Australia for the production of "Catherine Was Great" and "Diamond Lil" may fail because she demands £3,000 a week.
• • Other obstacles include transport.
• • The Director of the Tivoli Circuit (Mr. David Martin) who visited Hollywood recently said Mae West was a lovely person who neither smoked nor drank. If negotiations were satisfactorily completed, she would arrive in Australia about this time next year. …
• • Source: The Canberra Times (page 2); published on Wednesday, 21 November 1945
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • •
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — —
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 18th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past eighteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 5,100 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started eighteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 5,122nd 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 1936 and in 1928 • •
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Mae West: Richard Kyle Fox

There is a scene in "Diamond Lil" and also in "She Done Him Wrong" that shows MAE WEST's character relaxing in bed reading an issue of the National Police Gazette. Shortly after the release of the 1933 motion picture, Mae was, in fact, featured on the publication's front page. Though her photo was used only once on page 1, articles about the Empress of Sex continued to be cover lines throughout the years. One example: MAE WEST is 78 years old and still red hot! "I FEEL SEXY ALL THE TIME..." Mae gives her uncensored views on nudity, sex, homosexuals, and love. Here she tells how Hollywood has changed since she first came there 40 years ago! [Source: Police Gazette Magazine, Vol. CLXXV (175), June 1970, No. 6]
• • Richard Kyle Fox, the editor and proprietor of the original Police Gazette during its heyday, was the publication's beloved paternalistic leader. Born in Ireland in the month of August — — on 12 August 1846 — — Richard Fox seemed to possess all the right instincts for lurid self-promotion. The weekly journal was known for its sensationalism, risqué pictures of showgirls, the glorification of male strength, and the sponsorship of boxing bouts and other sports. He put so much of his personal stamp on everything surrounding the publication that the names Richard K. Fox and National Police Gazette were nearly synonymous. Fox was the ringmaster of this pink-paged circus from 1877 until his death on 14 November 1922.
• • Mae West & Eugene O'Neill: Off-beat Links • •
• • Eugene O'Neill's parents were both of Irish descent and proudly so. His father James O'Neill even commissioned a play called, "The O'Neill," and performed in it.
• • On her father's side, Mae West also claimed Irish ancestry. Her paternal grandmother was born in Ireland and immigrated to the USA as a child. John Edwin West, her paternal grandfather, who worked in the seafaring trade, seems to have come to NYC from Ireland by way of Canada.
• • On Sunday afternoon, 14 August 2011 • •
• • "Mae West in Bohemia — — Gin, Sin, Censorship, and Eugene O'Neill"
• • Mae West's birthday is August 17th. Join us at 3:00 pm on Sunday afternoon, 14 August 2011. The title of this illustrated historical theme walk is "Mae West in Bohemia — — Gin, Sin, Censorship, and Eugene O'Neill." Rare vintage illustrations will show you how the buildings and blocks looked as these two theatre people saw them.
• • Where: This illustrated walking tour begins at 62 West Ninth Street, NYC (near Sixth Avenue). Join us and take a walk on this Sunday.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West wrote this line for her movie “Klondike Annie” [1936]: “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Canadian reporter John Terauds tells his story this way: I came home from my trip to find a yellowed piece of newspaper on the balcony. Someone had torn out the movie and concert ads for late January. The big movie is Mae West's "She Done Him Wrong," which was released in 1933. Two performances in one venue on January 27th means that it was 1934, when this would have been a Saturday. (Sunday was the city's big day off, when, I'm told, Eaton's department store would pull drapes across its window displays so that people walking home from church on Sunday would not be tempted to think of worldly goods.) ...
• • Source: Article: "Old newspaper opens a window onto Toronto's rich performing arts life during the depths of the Great Depression" written by John Terauds for The Toronto Star (Canada); posted on 12 August 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2020th 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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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Hot Time 1934

The censors made the summer of 1934 unforgettably hot and uncomfortable for MAE WEST. Famously funny in her blockbuster Pre-Code motion picture comedies, Mae found her one-liners burnt to a crisp in a Will Hayes moment. The frisky screenplay that was conceived as "It Ain't No Sin" was considerably more scrubbed when it was delivered by August 1934 as a more demure "Belle of the Nineties" [released on 21 September 1934]. Thanks to the Code, Broadway's darling had been denatured.
• • BELLE OF THE NINETIES, adapted from a story by Mae West; music and lyrics by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow; directed by Leo McCarey; a Paramount production. At the Paramount.
• • Nevertheless, The New York Times movie critic Andre Sennwald seemed to like it. Sennwald wrote: Amid the lithographic Police Gazette settings of the Sensation House in New Orleans, Ruby Carter (in Miss West's classic person) rules the sporting world with queenly insolence. As she herself sagely observes, "It is better to be looked over than to be overlooked," and her serpentine gowns, hayloft coiffure and hour-glass figure insure her against neglect. Ruby's expressed preference is for two kinds of men — — domestic and foreign — — and the gentlemen moths, in their tight pants, bowler hats and Ascot cravats, flock to the flame. Even the bartenders with their walrus mustaches and spit-curls silently yearn for her. ... [N.Y. Times, Andre Sennwald, 22 September 1934].
• • Variety preferred to pooh-pooh at the Brooklyn blonde no matter what she did onstage or onscreen. Abel wrote a mixed review and these are his more warm-hearted statements: "Belle of the Nineties" is a little of everything. Even "St. Louis Blues" and "Memphis Blues" are in it — — she did "Frankie and Johnny" in "Diamond Lil." The original songs by Coslow and Johnston are "My Old Flame," "American Beauty," and "Troubled Waters." Duke Ellington's nifty jazzique is a natural for the Westian song delivery.
• • Abel added: "Troubled Waters" introduces a little of the Elder Michaux revival meeting. That's in the offing, but within seeming earshot, and thus she does a semi-spiritual against the heated colored revival meeting background which productionally is rather well worked in. ... [Variety, Abel, 25 September 1934].
• • Mae's strong constitution was evidenced in the fact that, despite censors and years of disappointments, she never turned to alcohol, pills, or illegal elixirs for comfort and she escaped having an ulcer. Coming up soon are bi-coastal annual celebrations of her mid-August birthday. Prepare the party hats!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC
Mae West.