SHE DONE HIM WRONG (Paramount 1933) Universal Home Video
Mae West is an acquired taste. That said, it is fairly
easy to acquire it. West, with her risqué humor, and devil-may-care approach to
life was one of the true trail-blazers of the 20th century; so progressive
and daring as to attempt to put on a Broadway play in which the topic was
lesbians – and this, back in 1929. In
pre-code Hollywood, West’s particular brand of sex appeal could be considered
fairly blue, if tolerable. Indeed, her quips combined the raucous with the tawdry,
but always in a playful manner that suggested none of it ought to be taken too
seriously. For certain, Mae never did. As example, once asked if she believed
in reincarnation, West responded, “You only live once, but if you do it
right, once is enough!” And if her latter day career, after Hollywood’s self-governing
code of ethics virtually emasculated the virility in her zingers, kept the
potency of Mae’s motives at bay, she could always be counted upon to circumvent
the censors, fondly recalled as the gal for whom ‘goodness’ had absolutely
nothing to do with any endeavor she might hope to promote under the guise of keeping
it clean. “I used to be Snow White,” Mae once said, “…but I drifted.”
Today, so much of what Mae wrought during these early years has entered our
popular lexicon, one simply forgets to afford her the credit that is due. “A
hard man is good to find…when choosing between two evils, pick the one you
haven’t yet tried, marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for one
yet,” and so on and so forth. Mae popularized the naughty but nice sex
symbol of the early thirties. If her image equally polarized religious factions
and ardent fans to, in tandem, condemn and exalt her vices as virtues – or vice
versa, Mae West was never to be forgotten for her outrageous candor.
And all of Mae’s loveably crude charm culminated in
the picture for which most likely her reputation still today endures: Lowell
Sherman’s She Done Him Wrong (1933) - 66 minutes of Oscar-nominated
volatile sexuality and one of the most subversive Pre-Code classics to star
cinema’s resident bad girl of the double entendre. Based on West’s own play ‘Diamond
Lil’ the screenplay by Harvey F. Thew and John Bright delivers a one-two
punch of sultry danger – its espionage and racketeering subplot lending a
distinct air of illicitness that proved intoxicating to film audiences back
then. Today, West still gets a lot of mileage out of her husky whiskey voice, a
raised eyebrow and lazy ‘come hither’ slither, accoutrements of a
flashy/slightly trashy vixen, so seasoned and secure in her sexual charms, it
does not even matter that, from a purely physical standpoint, she bears little resemblance
to the glamour gals of her day. Point blank: Mae’s charm is in her mouth,
rather than her bosom, cinched into her gowns, mostly without a girdle; all of
that voluptuous and soft flesh, oozing out in all directions. What West might
have done in today's socially lax laissez faire climate is anybody's guess. But
she generally gets away with murder in this film, tempting and teasing the
hapless male population into seeing everything her way.
Lady Lou (West) is a bawdy chanteuse in New York,
circa 1890 – peddling her particular brand of lowbrow ‘elegance’ at the Bowery
saloon for boss and benefactor, Gus Jordan (Noah Beery). Though Jordan has
lavished his favorite working gal with diamonds aplenty, Lou is not merely
content to be with one man. She is, after all, a woman for the ages and with
enough brazen ‘come hither’ in her to make the Marquis de Sade blush. Furthermore,
Lou is completely oblivious of the fact Jordan is a bad lot, training young girls
as pickpockets and running a house of prostitution and counterfeiting rings to
finance her luxuries with his partners in crime; Russian Rita (Rafaela Ottiano)
and her lover, Serge Stanieff (Gilbert Roland) – a pair of ruthless cutthroats.
A taut friction develops between Jordan and Captain Cummings (Cary Grant), the
director of the City Mission adjacent Jordan’s saloon. Jordan worries Cummings
frequent visits to his establishment are in support of some misguided
reformation movement that will prove unappealing to his lowly clientele. Little
does Jordan realize Cummings is keeping a very close eye on his spurious
activities for an ulterior purpose: Cummings is actually ‘The Hawk’; an
undercover Federal agent!
Lou finds Cummings attractive and flippantly goads him
into accepting her invitation to a private supper. Shortly thereafter, Cummings
begins to develop definite affections for Lou. Meanwhile, in another part of
town Lou’s incarcerated beau, Chick Clark (Owen Moore) has a murderous jealous
streak – threatening harm to Lou if she double-crosses him before his release.
Little does Chick realizes that his worse insecurities have already begun to be
realized. Lou has fallen for Cummings. Jordan inadvertently brings about his
own demise when he provides counterfeit for Rita and Serge to spend, thereby
alerting Cummings to his racket. Chick makes a daring prison escape, returns to
Lou at the saloon and threatens to kill her unless she steals away with him
into the night. A raid on the saloon thwarts Chick’s escape. Clark, Jordan and
Serge are also apprehended and taken away to jail. Lou, however, is loaded onto
a wagon with Cummings who, after removing all of her ill-gotten jewelry, replaces
her ring finger with a single band of gold, thereby implying at least a single
attempt to make an honest woman out of her.
She Done Him Wrong was a huge hit for West. Director,
Sherman delivers a fairly slick and action-packed melodrama/comedy. And West,
in platinum drag, is sinfully charming. In later years, West’s claim to have ‘discovered’
Cary Grant was something Grant took umbrage to. And while it is nevertheless
certain that Grant had been kicking around Hollywood long before Mae sank her
teeth into him, there is little to refute the claim that Grant’s costarring status
here did not give his fledgling career a major boost into the stratosphere, as
Hollywood’s latest leading man. Whatever the inference, Grant had already
appeared opposite Marlene Dietrich by the time he debuted in She Done Him
Wrong. So, from a purely semantic perspective, ‘discovery’ seems a gross
exaggeration on West’s part.
In 1996, the National Film Registry elected She
Done Him Wrong for preservation. Tragically, Universal Home Video has done
nothing to ‘restore’ the film to its original glory. The B&W image is
grainy and slightly blurry. The gray scale exhibits weak balance. Whites are a
dirty gray. Blacks are a dull, deeper gray. Age related artifacts are present
throughout. Film grain is excessive and distracting at times. The audio is mono
and rather strident sounding in spots. The opening lyrics to West’s classic
rendition of Frankie and Johnnie are distorted and inaudible. Extras
include a brief intro by TCM host, the late Robert Osbourne, and, a cartoon short – She
Done Him Right.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
2
EXTRAS
1
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