skip to main |
skip to sidebar
MAE WEST's co-star in "Belle of the Nineties" (aka "It Ain't No Sin") was the handsome native New Yorker Roger Pryor who came into the world (like Mae) in August; he was born on 27 August 1901/2. In Tinseltown, Roger Pryor was considered the "poor man's Clark Gable." Certainly he seems to sweep Ruby Carter [Mae's character] off her feet in his fictional persona as the prizefighter Tiger Kid. This would turn out to be his most memorable role. 
• • The son of a composer and band leader, Roger Pryor launched his own foray into show business as a teen performing with Connecticut's Myskle-Harder Stock Company. In 1925, his feet finally landed on Broadway via a production of "The Back Slapper" and then other opportunities on The Gay White Way soon followed.
• • Hollywood started paying attention and offered the handsome six-footer a role in "Broken Hearts" [1933]. A half-a-dozen films later, this leading man would be romancing Ruby Carter, the American Beauty queen of the night club — sporting world, on the silver screen.
• • But after 52 cinema projects between 1933 — 1945, his prospects seemed less rosy. He turned to radio hosting and other means of making a living.
• • Roger Pryor had a heart attack at age 72. Some sources say he died in California; others claim he met his end in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. It was a loss to his loved ones when he closed the book of January — — on 31 January 1974.
• • On Thursday, 31 January 1918 in The Big Apple • •
• • In 1898, in New York City, an ambitious young immigrant went into business as "William Morris, Vaudeville Agent." Incorporated in New York State on 31 January 1918, William Morris was joined by son William, Jr., and a former office boy Abe Lastfogel as directors of the company. As the silent film industry became more popular, Morris encouraged his performing clients to embrace opportunities in the screen trade. Stars such as Mae West along with the Marx Brothers, Al Jolson, and Charlie Chaplin helped build the Agency's position in movie houses.
• • On Monday, 31 January 1921 on Broadway • •
• • On 31 January 1921, the Cort 63rd Street Theatre was opened on Broadway and West 63rd. In 1922, the theater was renamed Daly's 63rd Street Theatre, in honor of Augustine Daly. Four years later, Mae West premiered her show "Sex" right there. The limousine line was long and the box office burned up in 1926.
• • On Monday, 31 January 1927 in Bridgeport • • 
• • Despite the public's curiosity about the controversial vaudevillian Mae West, and her latest play "The Drag," Jim Timony could only manage to secure half a week at Poli's Park, which was then in use as a burlesque house in Bridgeport.
• • It was a dreary and wintery Monday on 31 January 1927 when the Morals Production Company hoisted a banner over the trolley cars criss-crossing Main Street. Pedestrians were intrigued by this saucy announcement: "'The Drag' by the author of SEX — — more sensational than Rain or The Captive!" It was Mae West’s intention to give gay characters a voice and a spotlight. The police were lying in wait for her.
• • These true events are dramatized in Act I, Scene 2 of the stage play "Courting Mae West" by LindaAnn Loschiavo. Why not bring this astonishing 95-page play to your theatre?
• • On Tuesday, 31 January 1933 • •
• • Vaudeville star Elsie Janis dated her synopsis for a "Mae West Talking Picture" for Tuesday, 31 January 1933 — — but the project was deemed unsuitable for Mae.
• • On Friday, 31 January 1936 • •
• • According to the archives of The Hutchinson News [published in Hutchinson, Kansas]: In Hollywood, police raided an alleged "indecent" stage show and arrested the business manager for Mae West, along with 13 of the cast of "Ladies by Request." The play had run for several weeks. [This news item ran on Friday, 31 January 1936 and refers to a Los Angeles production produced by Jim Timony in a theatre owned by Mae.]
• • On Tuesday, 31 January 2006 • •
• • The Original Air Date for the episode "Dead Famous: Mae West" was broadcast on Tuesday, 31 January 2006. Stars: Gail Porter, Chris Fleming, and Mae West in archival footage.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I used to like to play Post Office. Mamma didn't object. But she got mad if I started giving special deliveries to one boy all the time. She wanted me to play with them all."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article in Singapore discussed Mae West.
• • John C. Moffitt wrote: She's proud of those vaudeville days and she's particularly proud of the fact that two of her "professors" (piano accompanists) since have become big shots in the entertainment world. Harry Richman and Jack (Whispering Baritone) Smith both pounded the ivories while she wiggled. ...
• • Source: Article: "At School Mae West Found Boys Were the Best Playmates" written by John C. Moffitt for The Straits Times; published on page 6, on 2 December 1934
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2194th 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/
________Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYCMae West.
James Donlan appeared in one cinema classic with MAE WEST. 
• • Born in San Francisco on 23 July 1888, James Donlan dove into the motion picture whirl during 1929 when he was — — yes, really — — 41 years old.
• • Though he sang in two motion pictures, his forte was his versatility as a character actor.
• • Between 1929 and 1938, he appeared in over 100 movies including "Belle of the Nineties" [1934], portraying Kirby, manager of the boxer Tiger Kid. He also was cast in a few comedies with the Three Stooges.
• • He is the father of actress Yolande Donlan, who was born in Jersey City, New Jersey on 2 June 1920. Her mother (and Donlan's wife) Therese was a singer. In 1976 Yolande published her autobiography, "Shake the Stars Down," which explores her childhood, her father's hectic schedule doing bit parts in a dozen pictures a year, and growing up in Tinseltown during the 1930s.
• • James Donlan died in Hollywood of a heart attack during the month of June — — on 7 June 1938 — — a month shy of his 50th birthday. He is being remembered today as a late bloomer who finally fulfilled his silver screen dreams. Is there a dream deferred in you? Go and pursue it today.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • cast mate James Donlan • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
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/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
James Donlan appeared in one cinema classic with MAE WEST.
• • Born in San Francisco on 23 July 1888, James Donlan dove into the motion picture whirl during 1929 when he was 41 years old.
• • Though he sang in two motion pictures, his forte was his versatility as a character actor.
• • Between 1929 and 1938, he appeared in over 100 movies including "Belle of the Nineties" [1934], portraying Kirby, the manager of boxer Tiger Kid. He also was cast in a few comedies with the Three Stooges.
• • He is the father of actress Yolande Donlan, who was born in Jersey City, New Jersey on 2 June 1920. Her mother (and Donlan's wife) Therese was a singer. In 1976 Yolande published her autobiography, "Shake the Stars Down," which explores her childhood, her father's hectic schedule doing bit parts in a dozen pictures a year, and growing up in Tinseltown during the 1930s.
• • James Donlan died in Hollywood of a heart attack during the month of June — — on 7 June 1938 — — a month shy of his 50th birthday.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 cast member • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
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/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.
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/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • • NYC
Mae West.
It was 19 March 1934 and MAE WEST had sin on her mind. Her new screen gem for Paramount Pictures began production on that date with a spunky working title: "It Ain't No Sin." 
• • Yes, yes, talk about waving a wide red handkerchief in front of Joe Breen's blue nose.
• • In his fascinating All Movie Guide, cinema critic Hal Erickson had this to say: Originally titled "It Ain't No Sin" until the censors prevailed, then "Saint Louis Woman" and "Belle of New Orleans" — — until complaints were registered from those two communities — — "Belle of the Nineties" [runtime: 73 minutes] was Mae West's first post-Production Code film.
• • Mae West is cast as cabaret entertainer Ruby Carter, plying her trade along the Mississippi. Having no trouble surviving on her own terms in a man's world, Ruby fends off the unwarranted attentions of a steady stream of libidinous males, reserving her affections for a muscular boxer called The Tiger Kid (Roger Pryor).
• • In keeping with the star's casual liberality, a number of black entertainers and athletes are given ample opportunities in this film, notably Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. The surest sign that the Code had "tamed" West a bit is the fact that she actually marries the hero at film's end. The musical highlights include West's unforgettable rendition of "My Old Flame."
• • Source: Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.
Viewpoints on MAE WEST vary. And the overall success achieved by "Belle of the Nineties" is often in the eye of the beholder.
• • According to a current critic Dave Kehr, who writes for The Chicago Reader, Leo McCarey, the director whose obsessive Catholicism in the midst of anarchic humor sometimes made him the Fritz Lang of comedy, seems slightly ill at ease when faced with the unbounded libido of Mae West in this 1934 production ["Belle of the Nineties"]. West is a Saint Louis torch singer (backed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra) who exhales "My Old Flame," "Memphis Blues," and "When a Saint Louis Woman Comes Down to New Orleans" in between amours, Kehr concludes.
• • But, in fact, the screenplay and its "unbounded libido" was a re-tread. 
• • The script for "It Ain't No Sin" [re-titled "Belle of the Nineties"] was Mae West's 1934 rewrite of her controversial bestseller "Babe Gordon" [1931] — — re-titled "The Constant Sinner" — — a work of fiction set in Harlem during the Prohibition Era.
• • In the stage version [and its novelization], the story is focused on a white prizefighter's tart [as Babe Gordon styles herself] who dallies in Harlem with an Irish boxer Bearcat Delaney and a dashing black pimp Money Johnson. Babe Gordon also sells cocaine, cleverly hidden in rouge containers, for some extra income and intrigue during her boring job in a department store. The cocaine sub-plot was bleached out of the Paramount screenplay, obviously.
• • In both the novel and the play, beautiful Babe Gordon marries Bearcat Delaney.
• • Though some believe that Mae West capitulated to the Hollywood censors by agreeing to a walk down the aisle for her characters Ruby Carter and the Tiger Kid, faithful readers recognized the similarity to Mae's 1931 storyline, which always contained the marriage angle.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.
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/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST's co-star in "Belle of the Nineties" was a handsome native New Yorker Roger Pryor who came into the world (like Mae) in August; he was born on 27 August 1901. 
In Tinseltown, Roger Pryor was considered the "poor man's Clark Gable." Certainly he seems to sweep Ruby Carter [Mae's character] off her feet in his role as the prizefighter Tiger Kid.
• • Hollywood's censors, however, were a more formidable opponent than any palooka Tiger Kid faced in the ring. The Hays Office sparred with the studio over Mae's one-liners and many plot points. Perhaps the least harmful suggestion the censors made was that Mae's character — — entertainer Ruby Carter — — had to wed her boxer-lover, showing a touch of conventional respectability by the finale. Mae-mavens know that Mae always gets her man — — even if church bells don't chime.• • On September 21, 1934, this is what the Los Angeles Evening Herald Express had to say about Mae West's new picture.
• • MAE WEST’S LURE HOLDS IN NEW FILM • •• • By Harrison Carroll
• • After seeing Mae West’s new picture Belle of the Nineties, one can only borrow a current slogan and advise the censors: ”Next time, get Ethyl.”
• • The blonde star has played the game according to their rules and emerged with a much funnier film than her last effort, I’m No Angel, which paid a profit that would make your eyes bulge. Belle of the Nineties, now playing at the Paramount, is a typical Mae West film about a St. Louis burlesque queen who went south to New Orleans and did everything but make the Mississippi run backwards. [Note: Frankie Baker, of "Frankie and Johnny" fame, also was a St. Louis woman who went down to New Orleans, where she met a young mack named Johnny. Coincidence. . . ?]
• • Mae has cleaned up some of her gags, that’s a fact. But even her warmest admirers will admit they could stand a little cleaning.
• • The important thing is that the star’s personality is unimpaired.
SPIRIT IS SAME
• • The spirit of the new picture is the same as She Done Him Wrong, which took the cinema world by storm.
• • Another smart move on Mae’s part is to give other players a chance in Belle of Nineties. Roger Pryor, who plays the prize-fighter sweetheart in the new film, is a splendid actor and his part is more than a listening post.
• • Johnny Mack Brown (a New Orleans blue-blood), John Miljan (owner of the gambling palace), Katherine DeMille (Mae’s enemy), James Donlon (the boxer’s manager), and Warren Hymer (the palooka) also have definite identities in the tale.
• • It is a story of swaggering gallants, two-fisted fighters, and warm-blooded beauties that unfolds in Belle of the Nineties. Ruby Carter, the heroine, is a smart dame with a weakness for prize-fighters, particularly the Tiger Kid.
• • But she gives up her love rather than hinder his career, and moves south for more worlds to conquer. It isn’t her fault that Ace La Mont, her new employer, falls for her and wants to get rid of his old favorite, the tempestuous Molly.
MUCH EXCITEMENT
• • Between Molly’s plan for revenge, Ace’s double-crossing and the arrival of the Tiger Kid, there is plenty of excitement before Ruby and her fist-slinger tell it to a minister. This tag is undoubtedly for the benefit of the censors [true enough!], but it doesn’t hurt the story a bit.
• • Belle of the Nineties has a number of songs, some of them very amusing. “My Old Flame,” “When a St. Louis Woman Comes to Town” and “Memphis Blues” are in the list.
• • Leo McCarey’s direction of the film has a nice pace. What few slow spots there are seem to have developed in the cutting [or, more likely, due to the censors' objections].
• • You can write Belle of the Nineties down as a hit.
• • The Paramount Theatre shows it along with a Betty Boop color cartoon, a newsreel and the Fanchon and Marco revue, "Dance Follies."
• • Source: Los Angeles Evening Herald Express
• • Published: 21 September 1934• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.
