Mae West Needs You

So far, MAE WEST ranks sixth as The Reader's Digest polls their audience to help choose the most side-splitting screen gems. Reader's Digest Editor Stefan Kanfer, who wrote about this quest to select the top hundred funniest films, listed these as the top ten.
• • THE GOLD RUSH (1925) — — Charlie Chaplin's greatest silent film.
• • THE FRESHMAN (1925) — — The third of the great silent film trio (the other two were Chaplin and Keaton), Harold Lloyd did all his own stunts, many of them dangerous, with skill and humor.
• • THE GENERAL (1927) — — Buster Keaton in an extraordinary silent comedy set during the Civil War.
• • DUCK SOUP (1933) — — Perhaps the purest film farce ever made — — directed con brio by Leo McCarey — — starring Harpo, Chico, and Groucho Marx at their manic peak.
• • DINNER AT EIGHT (1933) — — The "talkies" grew up with this adaptation of a Broadway hit by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. Under George Cukor's canny direction John and Lionel Barrymore, sex goddess Jean Harlow, and comedians Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery enliven the narrative.
• • SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933) — — Mae West became something of a joke in later life, but as her films prove, she was one of the best comedy writers in 1930s Hollywood. Here, she plays a Gay Nineties saloon singer in trouble with the law — — impersonated by Cary Grant in an early role. "When a woman goes wrong, the men go right after her." "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" The great lines are here, and Mae wrote 'em all. Lowell Sherman directed unobtrusively.
• • SONS OF THE DESERT (1933) — — Arguably Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's best film.
• • THE THIN MAN (1934) — — William Powell and Myrna Loy play Dashiell Hammett's sophisticated married sleuths, Nick and Nora Charles.
• • IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) — — Clark Gable is a cynical newspaperman who meets a pampered heiress (Claudette Colbert) in director Frank Capra's screwball comedy.
• • MY MAN GODFREY (1936) — — with Carole Lombard as the spoiled-rotten heiress and William Powell as the bum who becomes a butler and a guru in Gregory La Cava's rambunctious screwball farce.
• • As the publication is narrowing the field down to the top 100+ side-splitters of all time, write them and vote for Mae and more Mae.
• • Source: The Reader's Digest — — http://www.rd.com/ — —
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 ad • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Brooklyn Roots

MAE WEST and other Kings County cut-ups are discussed in an excellent article published by the venerable Brooklyn Eagle. Written by Brooklyn historian John B. Manbeck, "When Brooklyn Lost its Groove" is worth looking at.
• • Enjoy a tiny bit below to whet your appetite:
• • According to John Manbeck, Comics on the radio and in the movies sustained the image of the dumb but lovable mug from Brooklyn. Vitagraph Films and Hollywood stole the Brooklyn bumpkin from vaudeville and moved him to Coney Island. There he was impersonated by Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, Harold Lloyd, and John Bunny. Brooklyn women, although few had native roots, usually acted sharper than their counterparts act and were personified by MAE WEST, Marie Dressler, Jean Harlow, Gloria Grahame, and Pamela Britton. Masie, played by Ann Sothern, became a female William Bendix.
• • Radio added an aural dimension to the portrait. . . .
Source: The Brooklyn Eagle - - http://www.brooklyneagle.com/
Byline: John B. Manbeck
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.