Mae West: Most Fastidious

Articles on MAE WEST and 1930s reviews of her motion pictures that reveal how she was viewed by her peers are the most interesting. This review appeared in Time Magazine in 1934. This is Part 2 of 6 parts.
• • Belle of the Nineties (Paramount) • •
• • Mae West: New Orleans spluttered vehement objection • •
• • When Belle of New Orleans was proposed, the New Orleans civic organizations spluttered vehement objection. It was subsequently called St. Louis Woman, My Old Flame and several other things before Paramount chose Belle of the Nineties.
• • Ruby Carter's arrival on the pier • •

• • Only two major changes—a hasty and unconvincing marriage at the conclusion and the removal of a sequence showing Mae West and John Miljan preparing to retire—were made before Censor Joseph Breen saw and approved the picture last August. Subsequently Belle of the Nineties passed the censor boards which the industry considers most fastidious, New York and Kansas.
• • While in this motion picture Mae West is billed merely as star and sole author, it is generally understood that she did the casting, passed on the costumes, and is responsible for everything except the sound patents.
• • Mae West: Ruby Carter, the idol of Saint Louis • • ...
• • To be continued.
• • Source: Time Magazine; published on Monday, 24 September 1934.
• • On Monday, 16 April 1928 • •
• • This is from Carl Van Vechten's journal entry for Monday, 16 April 1928. Van Vechten wrote: I read proofs all the morning. Lunch in ... Then to see Mae West in "Diamond Lil," which I adored. Miss West is marvelous. Saw Edna Ferber between acts. [Source: "The Splendid Drunken Twenties: Selections from the Daybooks, 1922 — 1930" by Carl Van Vechten.]
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Mae West told a foreign journalist: "I'm for clean pictures and clean everything."
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "You can see for yourself that a girl's just at old as she feels."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A syndicated column about Hollywood discussed Mae West.
• • Mae West Suspends Posing As a Lolling Nymph Long Enough to Exhibit Herself As Gymnast • •
• • She Scorns All Hobbies, Has Quit Going to Prize Fights, Devotes Hours Writing Plays, Dictating Mae Scripts • •
• • Paul Harrison explained: It may come as a shock to some of the parishioners to hear that Mae West takes exercises. It was to me, anyway. Here, I always had thought Mae was a true Sybarite, a voluptuary lolling in a Louis XIV den of misters, ermine, and busy ivory telephones. Or Aphrodite reclining in a foam bath and reading Variety.
• • Paul Harrison continued: In most ways Mae has been remarkably inactive. Never drives her own cars, doesn't dance, swim or ride horseback. Has no interest in gardening, cooking, or knitting. She loathes all games from tennis to chess. She doesn't attend parties and is no longer a regular spectator at boxing matches because, she said, she can't endure the smell of cigars. ...
• • Source: Harrison in Hollywood column;  published on Wednesday, 20 March 1940
• • 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 16th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fifteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,700 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,714th 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 • • portraying Ruby Carter onscreen in 1934 • •
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Mae West: Embers of September 21

In September 1934, MAE WEST was involved in promoting her fourth feature for Paramount Pictures: "Belle of the Nineties." This motion picture was released on September 21st. And here is the review published in The New York Times on 22 September 1934. "Of course, Miss West is her own plot," wrote critic Andre Sennwald.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West and Her Gaudy Retinue in "Belle of the Nineties"
• • By ANDRE SENNWALD

• • Although Mae West has graciously permitted the New York censors to make an honest woman of her in her new picture, she has not adopted the emblematic blue-nose. Back in the days when "Belle of the Nineties" — alias "Belle of New Orleans" and "It Ain't No Sin" — was locked in a death grip with the local censorship board, one of the major points of dissension was the shocking fade-out in which Miss West won her man without the assistance of a justice of the peace. In the new and approved version there is a wedding ceremony and Miss West is now safe for her large following to visit.
• • It is pretty futile to strive for an air of detachment toward Miss West and her new work. A continuously hilarious burlesque of the mustache cup, celluloid collar, and family entrance era of the naughty Nineties, it immediately takes its place among the best screen comedies of the year. Its incomparable star has been bolstered by a smart and funny script, an excellent physical production, and a generally buoyant comic spirit. There are gags for every taste and most of them are outrageously funny according to almost any standard of humor.
• • Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow have provided four crimson chansons — "My Old Flame," "Troubled Waters," "My American Beauty," and "When a St. Louis Woman Comes Down to New Orleans" — which are quite perfect, and Miss West delivers them in her inimitable adenoidal contralto.
• • 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.
• • Of course, Miss West is her own plot, but there are a fixed prize-fight, some stolen jools, an envious siren, a fire, and a pair of rival claimants for her affections to add the necessary business. While Ruby's personal philosophy is, in her own words, to keep cool and collect, she has a healthy admiration for a good man, and the Tiger Kid fills the bill. Sinister interests conspire to separate them, and Ruby Carter is forced to fight for what she politely refers to as her honor against the evil and wax-mustached Ace Lamont, proprietor of the Sensation House. This last is of a vintage so objectionable as to cause the amiable Ruby to remark, "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
• • Roger Pryor as the Tiger Kid, John Miljan as the contemptible Ace, and Katherine DeMille as the jealous mistress of Ace Lamont all contribute excellently to the comedy, while Duke Ellington's boys provide the sulphurous musical background for Miss West's songs. If the great lady's public expects a cool and reasoned appraisal of "Belle of the Nineties" this morning, it will have to be disappointed. Not being immune to the common human failing of magnifying the virtues of the past, this reporter will always consider "She Done Him Wrong" her greatest show. At any rate, her present masterpiece is superior on every count to "I'm No Angel." As for its morality, you have Miss West's own testimony, when she tells an overwrought admirer, "Remember, I'm a lady, you worm."
• • You will have to take her word for it.
• • 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.
• • Source: The New York Times
• • Critic: Andre Sennwald
• • Originally published on: 22 September 1934
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: September 1934

In September 1934, MAE WEST was involved in promoting her fourth feature for Paramount Pictures: "Belle of the Nineties." Here is the movie review that was published in The New York Times on 22 September 1934.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West and Her Gaudy Retinue in "Belle of the Nineties"
• • By ANDRE SENNWALD

• • Although Mae West has graciously permitted the New York censors to make an honest woman of her in her new picture, she has not adopted the emblematic blue-nose. Back in the days when "Belle of the Nineties" — alias "Belle of New Orleans" and "It Ain't No Sin" — was locked in a death grip with the local censorship board, one of the major points of dissension was the shocking fade-out in which Miss West won her man without the assistance of a justice of the peace. In the new and approved version there is a wedding ceremony and Miss West is now safe for her large following to visit.
• • It is pretty futile to strive for an air of detachment toward Miss West and her new work. A continuously hilarious burlesque of the mustache cup, celluloid collar, and family entrance era of the naughty Nineties, it immediately takes its place among the best screen comedies of the year. Its incomparable star has been bolstered by a smart and funny script, an excellent physical production, and a generally buoyant comic spirit. There are gags for every taste and most of them are outrageously funny according to almost any standard of humor.
• • Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow have provided four crimson chansons — "My Old Flame," "Troubled Waters," "My American Beauty," and "When a St. Louis Woman Comes Down to New Orleans" — which are quite perfect, and Miss West delivers them in her inimitable adenoidal contralto.
• • 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.
• • Of course, Miss West is her own plot, but there are a fixed prize-fight, some stolen jools, an envious siren, a fire, and a pair of rival claimants for her affections to add the necessary business. While Ruby's personal philosophy is, in her own words, to keep cool and collect, she has a healthy admiration for a good man, and the Tiger Kid fills the bill. Sinister interests conspire to separate them, and Ruby Carter is forced to fight for what she politely refers to as her honor against the evil and wax-mustached Ace Lamont, proprietor of the Sensation House. This last is of a vintage so objectionable as to cause the amiable Ruby to remark, "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
• • Roger Pryor as the Tiger Kid, John Miljan as the contemptible Ace, and Katherine DeMille as the jealous mistress of Ace Lamont all contribute excellently to the comedy, while Duke Ellington's boys provide the sulphurous musical background for Miss West's songs. If the great lady's public expects a cool and reasoned appraisal of "Belle of the Nineties" this morning, it will have to be disappointed. Not being immune to the common human failing of magnifying the virtues of the past, this reporter will always consider "She Done Him Wrong" her greatest show. At any rate, her present masterpiece is superior on every count to "I'm No Angel." As for its morality, you have Miss West's own testimony, when she tells an overwrought admirer, "Remember, I'm a lady, you worm."
• • You will have to take her word for it.
• • 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.
• • Source: The New York Times
• • Critic: Andre Sennwald
• • Originally published on: 22 September 1934
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.