Mae West: Shady Bowery Saloon

MAE WEST’s plump, curvaceous body was a vital element in her comedy. Academics have emphasized that “excessive body is one of the qualities of female unruliness, suggesting that she is unwilling or unable to control her physical appetites.” Japanese film historian Mio Hatokai discusses how Hollywood publicists and fan zines responded to this “fatness” in 1933. This is Part 42 of a lengthy piece.
• • Laughing off the “Fatness” ― Mae West’s Body Image and Female Spectators in the Early 1930s • •
• • Mae West: Shady business in Gus Jordan’s Bowery saloon • •  
• • Mio Hatokai wrote: Her boss, Gus Jordan (Noah Beery) keeps Lady Lou content by buying all her finery, while involved in shady business deals with Rita (Rafaela Ottiano) and her lover, Serge (Gilbert Roland).

• • Mio Hatokai wrote: Handsome Captain Cummings (Cary Grant), the captain of a mission located next door, drops by the saloon every now and then, and Lou takes an immediate liking to him.
• • Mio Hatokai wrote: Upon learning that her former boyfriend Chick Clark (Owen Moore) thinks Lou has betrayed him in his absence, she pays him a visit in prison. [In the 1928 play version, there is no "prison visit" since Chick Clark has escaped from his Chicago jail cell in Act I, Scene 1, a fact Diamond Lil is unaware of until he turns up.]
• • Mae West: “The Hawk,” an agent investigating Gus • • ...  
• • Mio Hatokai’s lengthy article will continue on the next post.
• • Source: Academic anthology on film stars released by Waseda University, 2015.
• • On Thursday, 16 December 1937 • •
• • It was on Thursday, 16 December 1937 that Variety ran an article about Mae West's controversial appearance on NBC in the Garden of Eden Skit: "Educator calls radio program a home menace."
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Hollywood columnist Vernon Scott wrote: A young Mae West has muscled into television with a raucous voice, flirty blue eyes and round-house curves to star in an adventure drama, of all things. She is Dorothy Provine of "The Alaskans" series.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "To me the most difficult part of placing a successful motion picture story is getting it cast correctly."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The New Yorker featured an article on Mae West.
• • “The Strong Woman: Mae West” • •
• • Claudia Roth Pierpont wrote: If Susan Sontag's definition of camp as "failed seriousness" holds true, then American academic writing has become our culture's leading camp phenomenon. …
• • Source: The New Yorker; published on Sunday, 3 November 1996
• • 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 17th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past seventeen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,800 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seventeen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,888th 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 • • onscreen in 1933 • •
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