Mae West: Fulton J. Sheen

Quite doubtful that MAE WEST ever traded banter with a man-of-the-collar. It's certain that the screen queen sympathized with nuns she spotted waiting for (or riding on) a bus; Mae donated many of her old cars to the local convents to prevent nuns from such indignity and hardship. Nevertheless, the Empress of Sex often became a punchline. Father Joseph repeats an iffy from the fifties.
• • Father Leo M. Joseph O.S.F. takes pen in hand to remind his readers: There’s an old joke that goes: One day in February back in the 1950s, the legendary Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, the original televangelist, was at a TV studio in New York to tape one of his Lenten programs (sponsored by Progresso Soup) and it so happened that he crossed paths in the hallway with the aging iconic “bad girl” of stage, film and TV, Mae West.
• • She paused in front of him, gave him a slow once-over in all his bishop’s regalia, and cooed, “Not bad looking. Why don’t ya come up and see me sometime.”
• • Bishop Sheen reared up in righteous indignation, turned as purple as his pontifical mantle, and replied, “You wicked Jezebel! Don’t you know it’s LENT?”
• • As she sauntered off, Mae West snapped, “Well, no I didn’t. But uh, why don’t you come up and see me when you get it back ...”
• • These days, Mae West is not the only one who doesn’t know about Lent. The mass media will have plenty of footage showing the revelry in New Orleans as Mardi Gras winds up its weeks of partying in the streets, but little mention of the “morning after,” Ash Wednesday and the 40-day observance of Lent. Yet for Christians all over the world this is a time-honored tradition that dates back . . . .
• • How many think that is (or was, even for a half second back in the 1950s) hilarious?
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Mardi Gras — — the morning after"
• • BY: Fr. Leo M. Joseph O.S.F. | Columnist
• • Published by Lake County News — — lakeconews.com
• • Published on: 15 February 2010
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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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: 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: July 6th

To those who share a MAE WEST mindset, memories tied to the sixth of July will be overshadowed by the passing of two men she admired, gifted black musicians who died of heart attacks on that day.
• • Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Louis Armstrong [4 August 1901 — 6 July 1971] was a versatile and innovative singer and jazz trumpeter nicknamed Satchmo. At the age of 69, Louis Armstrong died shortly after a heart attack in New York City.
• • It was during the Prohibition Era, at Owney Madden's Cotton Club in Harlem that Mae West first encountered this talented musician, then in his twenties.
• • Since the New Orleans native impressed Mae, she asked him to participate in "Every Day's a Holiday" [1937].
• • The movie's musical numbers include "Jubilee" (written by Stanley Adams and Hoagy Carmichael and sung by Louis Armstrong). Seen very briefly as a street cleaner, Louis Armstrong introduces the song "Jubilee" while parading down the street along with other street sweepers during an election rally.
• • Currently, the house where Louis Armstrong lived for close to 28 years (declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977) is a museum. The Louis Armstrong House Museum — — at 34-56 107th Street (between 34th and 37th Avenues) in Corona, Queens, New York — — presents concerts and educational programs, operates as a historic house museum, and makes its archival materials and memorabilia available to the public for research. The museum is operated by the City University of New York's Queens College, following the dictates of Lucille Armstrong's will.
• • Born in Washington, DC, Van McCoy [6 January 1940 — 6 July 1979] was an accomplished musician, music producer as well as an arranger, orchestra conductor, and lyricist. He is best known for his massive 1975 international hit "The Hustle" — — a tune still played on dance floors and radio today nearly 30 years after his death. He has around 700 song copyrights to his credit. At the age of 39, Van McCoy was in Englewood, New Jersey when he was forever silenced by a fatal heart attack.
• • Better known for doing The Shimmy than hustling on the dance floor, Mae West, who starred and wrote the screenplay for "Sextette," had asked Van McCoy to write the theme song, and to make a cameo appearance in her motion picture.
• • "Sextette" was released on 3 March 1978.
• • Two mournful coincidences, two broken hearts on July 6th.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: March 1934

Starting in March 1934, MAE WEST was involved in her fourth feature for Paramount Pictures: "Belle of the Nineties." After an ongoing battle with the censors, this "Naughty 90s-theme" motion picture was wrestled from the Paramount wringer on September 21st looking and sounding very different from its original model — — Mae's Broadway drama "The Constant Sinner" set in Harlem where 18-year-old Babe Gordon is a "prizefighter's tart" during the 1920s.
• • Mae West was beset with other concerns, too, during the unpredictable month of March. Quarrels with her manager Jim Timony resulted in his moving out of the Ravenswood and bedding down in a modest home behind the Hollytown Theatre, where he resumed his old involvement in stage plays.
• • Meanwhile, "Battling Jack" West left his Florida flat and showed up in Los Angeles. Unwilling to have her father interfere with her private life, Mae had him moved to her San Fernando Valley Ranch. Nevertheless, she had the studio put him on the payroll to lend his expertise to staging the Tiger Kid scenes. A Paramount press release alerted the media that their boxing consultant was a former prizefighter — — a "stocky, well-built man, bearing none of the usual physiological mementos of the ring."
• • Adding to the tense atmosphere was Joe Breen's determination to make an honest woman out of Mae's character Ruby Carter.
• • Reflecting on this sudden upsurge of family values in 1934, The New York Times wrote: 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. ..."
• • Retracing Mae's stressful journey in 1934 will bring us to Arthur Mayer, that sprite inside Paramount's publicity office, and his idea about training several dozen African parrots to promote the film. Toucan, anyone? More anon.
• • 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: 1934's Belle

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: New Orleans

When a St. Louis woman comes down to New Orleans, it doesn't matter if Mardi Gras has passed because a new party is in town: Ruby Carter - - played by MAE WEST.
• • Originally, the male lead for "It Ain't No Sin" [re-titled "Belle of the Nineties" and released in September 1934] was to be George Raft. However, 33-year-old Roger Pryor [1901-1974] - - dubbed "the poor man's Clark Gable" - - got the role of the boxer called the Tiger Kid.
• • Though Karl Struss was the cinematographer who worked on "Belle of the Nineties," this photograph of Mae West at ringside was taken by a master portraitist who shot many Hollywood stars and other celebrities: George Hoyningen-Huené.
• • Baron George Hoyningen-Huené, who segued into the darkroom when he met his lover Horst, was born on 4 September 1900 in Russia to a nobleman.
• • Hoyningen-Huené, behind a camera before anything resembling contemporary flash photography was known, achieved wonderful effects in black and white.
• • George Hoyningen-Huené died, age 68, in Los Angeles on 12 September 1968.
• • 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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