THE FILMS OF MAE WEST: Blu-rays (Paramount/Universal, 1932-1940) Kino Lorber

Mae West is an acquired taste. That said, she is rather easy to acquire – a bawdy and buxom broad, where a broad ought to be broad. At 40, an age when most actresses are preparing to retired their gams, and certainly, to hang up the garters used to adorn them… or, be branded as over-the-hill has-beens, West actually began her film career at Paramount. Under the rubric of “there are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out”, West, in her prime, let it all hang out. She was a trailblazer in an era that, just prior to the installation of Hollywood’s moral code, actually valued such daring. Long before it was ‘fashionable’ to be provocative, and even longer still before her movie land debut, West was an audacious one-woman self-promoter, playwright, singer and bona fide sex symbol. The movies arguably came late in West’s conquering of the entertainment world, undaunted by the vintage of her years and pitched against starlets and sexpots half her age. But oh, how Mae West could hold court and any man in the palm of her hand until he winced or squealed with uncomfortably raw pleasure at her breezy double extenders, delivered in that trademarked whisky contralto. Given the reputation to have preceded her arrival in Tinsel Town, West’s motion picture debut created quite a rustle against the prevailing winds of respectability put forth by temperance and religious groups campaigning for moral decency in their popular entertainments.

Her mocking of convention and laissez faire attitudes towards sex, men and money made her an instant darling for audiences, and, a convenient punching bag, further to press conservative groups into silencing her particular brand of uninhibited sexuality. For a brief wrinkle during the Great Depression, and 9 movies, West weathered this fray and towered over her contemporaries.  But when her movie career ended, it did so with a miraculous, very sudden and even more distinct thud – the sound of doors closing all over Hollywood, forcing West to retreat into other spheres of influence. A brilliant raconteur and farceur with a genius for transposing utter shock value into endearing and memorable one-liners, West wrote incessantly – books and plays – and turned, first, to Vegas, then England, tapping into radio, television and, briefly, as a rock n’ roller. And it is saying much of her legacy that, for a performer to have outlived her prime, absent for decades from the public eye, West nevertheless was posthumously awarded the AFI’s honor as the 15th greatest female screen legend of classic American cinema a full 19-years after her death in 1980.

“I wrote the story myself,” West once quipped, “It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it.” And indeed, Mae West today is best remembered for all those incredibly sassy, very sexy and utterly frank zingers on male/female relationships – gone wrong/gone right, or just plain gone right under our noses, with West’s keen observance to flush them out and bring all the fuss, kitsch, coo and total nonsense of the hot pursuit, cute meet, and joyous defeat to the forefront as thoroughly acceptable behavior, elevating déclassé dames to compete with the refined ‘front parlor’ class, while adding a tad of tarnish to the Puritanical inference good girls get ahead, while bad girls go everywhere. Precisely how much West believed in this sort of ultra-liberated female is debatable.  She wed Frank Szatkus (a.k.a. Frank Wallace) in 1911, kept her marriage a secret, divorced him in 1943, had numerous affairs besides, aborted a child sired by Italian-born Vaudevillian, Guido Deiro (whom she was rumored to have also secretly wed in 1914, which would have made West a polygamist) and later chirped that although marriage was a great ‘institution’ she was not yet quite ready for the nut house.  Instead, she had a rather torrid liaison with her manager, James Timony, 9-years her senior. But when West arrived in Hollywood, Timony was no longer sharing her bed, though he continued to guide her career and successfully oversee her personal finances until his death in 1954. West was devoted to her entire family, particularly her mother, who died in 1930, just as West was about to embark upon her movie career.

For the rest of her life, West saw to it her father and siblings had homes and jobs nearby, maintaining a close-knit familial warmth, never to cool. West’s loyalties also extended to her men. When black boxing champion, William Jones was denied entry to her apartment building, based on the color of his skin, West defiantly bought the building outright, ousting its current management and lifting the ban.  In her emeritus years, West showed no signs of slowing down. She had another hot and heavy affair at age 61 with muscle man, Chester Rybinski (professionally known as Paul Novak), 30-years her junior, and who remained her devoted companion for more than 25 years. Despite their May/December coupling, it appears each had found happiness in the other’s arms, Novak later to rather lovingly suggest he believed he had been put on this earth to care for the aged star until her death.

West was only 5 when she first entertained, ironically at a church social. Immediately noticed, she won prizes for her talent and began a Vaudeville career doing impersonations at age 14 under the moniker, Baby Mae, while using the name ‘Jane Mast’ to pursue her more bawdy ambitions. Over the years, West’s inimitable strut, which she perfected during this time, her hips heavily swishing from side to side, has been lampooned by drag queens. But actually, this ‘walk’ resulted from wearing a unique – if awkward – platform shoe to add height to her diminutive 4 ft., 9-inch frame. Officially, West became a Broadway star in 1918, performing the shimmy opposite comedian, Ed Wynn. But it was for her uber-risqué play, Sex (1926), that West not only wrote and starred in, but also produced and directed, panned by the critics, but sold out virtually overnight, that she was eventually catapulted into the national spotlight. Arrested on a charge of moral corruption, along with the rest of the cast, West chose to serve 10 days in jail over paying the fine and used the occasion to advance her status as a hard-working gal who was climbing the ladder of success ‘one wrong at a time’. West was also an early supporter of gay rights. Her next play, The Drag was a celebratory farce of homosexuality that did respectable business in Connecticut and New Jersey but was never to open on Broadway, thanks to a city-wide ban. Her most prolific and enduring stagecraft was Diamond Lil (1928) the story of an indelicate, blasé, but street-savvy gal of the 1890’s. It won her acclaim and would be resurrected several times throughout her later career. It was during this interim that West decided to put her Broadway career on hold, accepting a short-term contract from Paramount to appear in pictures: two-months at $5,000 a week.

And thus, West made her movie debut as Maudie Triplett in Night After Night (1932) a bit role opposite the picture’s star, George Raft. Maudie Triplett is actually based on Texas Guinan, an actress and close personal friend of Raft’s whom he had hoped to cast in the movie. Guinan’s loss, decidedly West’s gain, as the picture – a disposable programmer otherwise – has remained noteworthy ever since for West’s cinematic coming out. Paramount appeased West by allowing her to rewrite portions of her dialogue, resulting in one of her iconic zingers. When a hat check girl exclaims, “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!” West’s Maudie glibly replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.” While Raft was disappointed his friend had not been cast in this career-launching movie, he later acknowledged West’s ability to hold an audience spellbound in the dark, adding “she stole everything but the cameras”. Night After Night is the tale of speakeasy proprietor, Joe Anton (Raft) who falls madly for socialite, Miss Jerry Healy (Constance Cummings). Unbeknownst to Anton, Healy is merely interested in him because he now owns the elegant building that once belonged to her family before the 1929 Wall Street crash. To improve his prospects with Healy, Anton pays to be educated in his manners. Alas, Anton is reunited with an old flame, Iris Dawn (Wynne Gibson) whom he pursues just as Healy has begun to harbor genuine affections for him. In a third-rate bit part, West’s Maudie Triplett befriends Mrs. Mabel Jellyman (Alison Skipworth), the woman who taught Anton how to behave like a gentleman, and eventually offers her employment as a hostess in her posh beauty parlor.

Night After Night may not have been West’s finest moment, but it did get her noticed. Her next two movies - She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel (both made and released in 1933), were each generally panned by the critics, but wildly popular with audiences. They also served as kick-starters for the career of another hopeful, Cary Grant. In later years, West’s claim to have ‘discovered’ Grant irked her co-star immensely. But if Grant bristled at the insinuation, he would have never found stardom on his own terms without West’s influence, there is little to deny his career after these two movies was on a much healthier trajectory than it had been before appearing in either of them. For She Done Him Wrong, Paramount bought out the rights to West’s Diamond Lil character, rechristened as Lady Lou. The plot, set in the gay nineties, concerns a sassy singer, Lou, who works the Bowery for her boss and benefactor, Gus Jordon (Noah Beery Sr.) while entertaining a slew of men folk on the sly. Gus, alas, is financing Lou’s career and lavish lifestyle from ill-gotten gains via underground prostitution, counterfeiting and pickpocketing operations, along with accomplices, Russian Rita (Rafaela Ottiano) and Sergei Stanieff (Gilbert Roland). Meanwhile, Lou’s former flame, Dan Flynn (David Landau) begins dropping hints of Gus’ corrupt practices and suggests he would like to take Lou away from all this. Eventually, however, he tires of her flirtatious stalemates and threatens to destroy her reputation and career.

Adjacent the nightclub is the city mission run by Captain Cummings (Cary Grant), actually - an undercover Federal agent, investigating Gus. And Lou, having momentarily shorn herself of no-good, Chick Clark (Owen Moore), serving time in prison, now becomes attracted to the seemingly virtuous Cummings as his substitute. Clark threatens to see Lou dead if he finds out she has been unfaithful to him. Meanwhile, Gus gives Rita and Sergei some counterfeit money to spend. Chick breaks out of prison, finding his way back to Lou’s dressing room at the nightclub where he momentarily attempts to strangle her. However, still in love with her, he hesitates and she insists she will run away with him as soon as her next number is finished. As Sergei has given Lou a diamond broach that once belonged to Rita, Rita now attempts to do Lou harm. Instead, Lou accidentally stabs Rita to death. As police descend on the club, Lou props Rita up, pretending to comb her hair to camouflage the murder. The police tear apart the club, searching for Clark. Now, Lou gets her ever-devoted hired man, Spider Kane (Dewey Robinson) to dispose of Rita’s remains. She further instructs Spider to find Clark in the back alley and smuggle him back into her boudoir, sending Flynn there also, knowing Clark will kill him. Indeed, Clark shoots Flynn, drawing attention to his whereabouts, which was Lou’s plan all along. Now, Cummings reveals himself to be ‘the hawk’ – a well-regarded Federal agent. In short order, he not only arrests Gus and Sergei, but also manages to apprehend Clark. Believing she will also be arrested, Lou is startled when Cummings instead escorts her to a horse-drawn carriage, placing the diamond engagement ring on her finger.

She Done Him Wrong was a box office titan, nominated for Best Picture and pulling Paramount back from the brink of bankruptcy. Believing they had a new screen team on their hands, Paramount immediately paired West and Grant together. The results this time were even more profitable: I’m No Angel (1933) becoming Mae West’s most successful movie yet, and, in fact, the one to top them all in the long run.  The movie tells the tale of Tira (Mae West) a whisky-voiced tough gal who can be soft in the right places, and, who shimmies and sings in Big Bill Barton's Wonder Show while her boy/toy pickpocket, Slick (Ralf Harolde), relieves her distracted audience of their valuables for proprietor, Big Bill (Edward Arnold). One of these pigeons, Ernest Brown (William B. Davidson), arranges a clandestine rendezvous with Tira, rudely interrupted by Slick who tries, mostly in vain, to run a badger game on Brown. In the resultant argument, Brown threatens to inform the police about their crooked scheme and Slick knocks Brown unconscious with a bottle. Believing he has murdered Brown, Slick flees the scene, but is later apprehended and jailed.

Concerned, the slimy Slick will implicate her, Tira asks Bill to retain a lawyer, Bennie Pinkowitz (Gregory Ratoff). He agrees, but only if she will do her former lion-taming act, sure to get them both the sort of notoriety that sells a lot of tickets. Begrudgingly, Tira agrees. The act is a smash and Tira goes to New York where she quickly hooks up with Kirk Lawrence (Kent Taylor) a swell who is immediately smitten, despite already being engaged to Alicia Hatton (Gertrude Michael). Kirk buys expensive trinkets for his new love. Only now, his even wealthier cousin, Jack Clayton (Cary Grant) intervenes on his behalf, imploring Tira, whom he believes to be a wanton seductress, to leave Kirk alone. Instead, Jack begins to harbor feelings for her, resulting in a whirlwind romance and engagement. Unwilling to let his prize act retire, Bill gets Slick sprung from prison. He arrives at Tira’s penthouse and feigns being her lover. Jack is heartbroken and cancels their plans to wed. Embittered, Tira sues Jack for breach of promise, and during the course of the trial, easily wins over the judge (Walter Waker), the jury and Jack. The ruling in her favor, Jack prepares a fat settlement as his parting gift. Instead, Tira tears up his check and the two are reconciled.

I'm No Angel effectively caught the tail fires of West and Grant’s previous pairing. By now, she was Paramount’s biggest box office draw, as well as Hollywood’s most controversial star. But West's vulgar caricature was doing more than winning fans. It was outraging the popular moralists of their day. West, along with screen siren, Jean Harlow, had become punching bags for Puritanical outcries to silence their outspoken, raw sexuality with more than a dash of slum prudery.  Nevertheless, West was hotter than ever, referenced in a Cole Porter song, painted on a WPA mural for Frisco’s then newly inaugurated Coit Tower, and even making a cameo in the Betty Boop cartoon, ‘She Done Him Right’. Variety, the showbiz bible acknowledged as much, suggesting that the controversy swirling around West's pictures had made her as hot a topic as Adolf Hitler.

Eager to keep the momentum going, Paramount reluctantly allowed West to appear in Belle of the Nineties (1934), a costly reboot of It Ain’t No Sin, a play she had written. Alas, by the time the movie hit theaters it was all but emasculated by Hollywood’s newly instated Production Code of Ethics. Moralist groups, lobbying Washington to intercede on their behalf and put a stop to the moral turpitude being depicted in their popular entertainments, forced Hollywood to react with a stern knee/jerk variation on a concept that had been kicking around Tinsel Town since the early thirties but, under the auspices of the moguls ‘what me worry?’ philosophy had lacked the necessary bite to make a difference one way or another. Now, under the command of ultra-conservative, Will Hayes, the Code took on an authoritarian governance that brought the heavy hand of screen censorship to bear on Hollywood’s art. And West was one of the first major stars they went after with a vengeance. Much of Belle of the Nineties was either reworked, rewritten or otherwise ‘cleansed’ of its forthright humor.

The story is set in St. Louis circa 1892, following gaudy nightclub singer, Ruby Carter (West). She is having a lurid affair with prizefighter, Tiger Kid (Roger Pryor) who is also something of a control freak. His manager, Kirby (James Donlan), believing the Kid will go soft under Ruby’s spell, gets another fighter to pose as her lover to split them up. Meanwhile, saloon keeper, Ace Lamont (John Miljan) offers Ruby a lucrative contract to appear at his place in New Orleans. Alas, Ruby is stalked by Ace's gal/pal, Molly Brant (Katherine DeMille – the adopted daughter of one of Paramount’s founding fathers, Cecil B.). Ruby begins to seek greener pastures with many of the adoring men who come to see her show. One, Brooks Claybourne (John Mack Brown) showers her with diamonds. Now, Ace hires Tiger to engage in a fixed fight against St. Louis’ bruiser, Battling Bruce (Warren Hymer), with the proviso Tiger steals the diamonds Brooks gave an unnamed woman so he, Ace, can finance the fight. Unaware the woman in question is Ruby, Tiger follows through with the plan. Later, Ruby witnesses Ace concealing her stolen property in his safe. Meanwhile, Tiger pledges his love to Ruby yet again.

Knowing Ace has bet nearly everything he has on Tiger, Ruby puts a sedative in Tiger's pre-fight bottle. Drugged, he loses the bout. Incurring a terrific debt he cannot repay, Ace plots to torch his saloon for the insurance money and escape with Ruby and the diamonds to Cuba. Ace then tricks Molly into believing his love for her has not cooled, before locking her in a closet and dousing it in kerosene. In an adjacent room, Tiger threatens Ruby. She suggests Ace was responsible for his defeat. So, Tiger attacks Ace, who strikes his head and dies instantly. Inadvertently discarding her lit her cigarette, the kerosene from next door ignites in a hellish blaze. Hearing Molly’s tortured screams from the closet, Tiger rescues her while Ruby calls the fire department. Tiger faces trial for Ace's murder, but is exonerated, allowing him to wed Ruby. 

Although Belle of the Nineties earned a respectable $2 million, a good solid showing for a Mae West movie, Paramount had spent considerably more to produce it and was unimpressed with these results. Furthermore, they had hired Duke Ellington and his band at West’s behest to perform the music in the picture while recognizing Ellington’s inclusion would limit distribution in the deep South. Undaunted by the disappointing box office, Paramount quickly thrust West into Going to Town (1935) the story of Cleo Borden (West) – a dance hall hoofer and pseudo-femme fatale who enters into a questionable arrangement with cattle rustler, Buck Gonzales (Fred Kohler). Cleo wants Buck’s oil-rich land. But when Buck is murdered, she inherits everything. Now, a very rich woman, Cleo plots to seduce land surveyor, Edward Carrington (Paul Cavanagh). Found out in her intentions, Carrington departs for Buenos Aires, pursued by Cleo, who now aspires to remake herself as ‘a lady’ by entering her thoroughbred, Cactus in the international horse race. Argentinian high society, in tandem, is amused and appalled by Cleo’s forthrightness. She appeals to Russian millionaire, Ivan Valadov (Ivan Lebedeff) betting his mistress, Mrs. Crane Brittony (Marjorie Gateson), Cactus will win. Determined Cactus should lose, Brittony’s scheme to disqualify the horse is derailed by Cleo's Indian assistant, Taho (Tito Coral). Meanwhile, Brittony's nephew, Fletcher Colton (Monroe Owsley), loses his entire fortune in a game of chance. Believing ‘a title’ would help her land Carrington, Cleo agrees to wed Colton in name only.

To save face, and also gain access to Cleo’s cash, Colton agrees. The two are married and take up residence in Southampton where Cleo stages an opera, sure to entice Carrington to attend. He does, with his newly anointed title, Earl of Stratton. Time has not withered his affections for Cleo. In fact, he desires her even more. Jealously, Lady Brittony tries to tarnish Cleo's reputation by staging a clandestine meeting between Cleo and Valadov in Cleo's boudoir. Alas, Valadov is found out by Colton, who shoots him dead with a revolver. The crime is blamed on Cleo until she discovers Valadov's cigarette in the ashtray. Taho emerges to implicate Valadov, and he sheepishly confesses to Lady Britton’s scheme to ruin Cleo. As such, Cleo divorces Colton and becomes Lady Stratton. Shorn of its most risqué double entendre, Going to Town was not a success. West was extremely disappointed with the results but sojourned on into her next effort, 1936’s Klondike Annie. Owing to a previous off-the-cuff remark she had made about William Randolph Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies, the wily newspaper mogul launched an all-out attack on the movie, calling for Paramount to do something about the ‘Mae West menace’.

The perceived ‘menace’ was dealt with more swiftly in Klondike Annie (1936), heavily censored as its subject matter dealt with religion and hypocrisy. Once again, West’s protagonist hailed from spurious beginnings. In Frisco’s old Chinatown, circa 1890, Rose Carlton – a.k.a. ‘The Frisco Doll’ (West) is a kept woman at the seedy gambling house of Chan Lo (Harold Huber). As West’s own persona never allowed her to remain any man’s plaything for very long, Rose murders Lo after he intercepts a message from her faithful servant, Ah Toy (Wong Wing) and tortures the woman, hoping to learn of its origins. Rose’s devoted friend, Vance Palmer (Conway Tearle) informs her he has arranged everything for her secret passage to Nome. Now, Rose and her maid, Fah Wong (Soo Yong), board the Java Maid, bound for Alaska. Almost immediately, the ship’s captain, Bull Brackett (the ever dependable, Victor McLaglen), falls for Rose and even gives up his cabin to her. Bull agrees to leave Fah in Seattle. Alas, there, he learns Rose is wanted for murder. Nevertheless, he loves her still. In Seattle, the Java Maid picks up settlement worker, Sister Annie Alden (Helen Jerome Eddy) who is, at first, disgusted by Rose’s loose morals. However, when she falls ill, Rose nurses Annie, who is impressed by her kind-hearted nature. Alas, Annie dies anyway just as Inspector Jack Forrest (Phillip Reed) boards the boat in search of Rose. So, Rose becomes Annie who, along with Bull, convince Jack that it was actually Rose that died on the journey.

Now, forced to keep up this pretense, Rose – as Annie – assumes the duties to revive membership in the Alaskan Settlement House by conducting rousing meetings. Jack becomes smitten with Rose until he overhears a conversation between her and Bull in which he refers to her as ‘Doll’. Empathetic, Jack confides he knows the truth. But he has decided to resign from the force rather than turn her in. Nobly, Rose realizes she cannot allow Jack to derail his career because of her. Having convinced the town to close on Sundays and also, to have raised enough money to pay off the settlement house’s debts, Rose gives up missionary life. Before she leaves, she bids Brother Bowser (Harry Beresford) to build an even bigger settlement house in Sister Annie Alden’s honor. An attempt on Rose’s life is made by Wing (Philip Ahn) one of Chan Lo’s goons who is out for revenge. The knife instead strikes Rose’s settlement book.  In a dream, Annie bids Rose to face her fate at trial. Realizing she must do the right thing, Rose implores Bull to take he back to San Francisco where she is determined to accept whatever punishment the law has in store, but with Bull at her side.

For some, Klondike Annie was hailed as West’s magnum opus. It was followed by what many consider her weakest movie – 1936’s Go West Young Man, costarring dependable second-string leading man, Randolph Scott. This time, West played Mavis Arden, a glamorous movie star with a temper. Arden presents herself to the public as the antithesis of her caustic and lustful self.  Secretly entertaining an old flame, Francis X. Harrigan (Lyle Talbot), who hopes to run for Congress, Arden’s clandestine rendezvous turns sour when her press agent, Morgan (Warren Williams) exposes the affair, hoping the scandalize Harrigan’s aspiring politico. To shore up their reputations – and relations – Mavis gives an impromptu speech about the sanctity of marriage. However, as Harrigan plans his rebuttal, his pal, Andy Kelton (Walter Walker) informs him Mavis’ interview was the slickest bit of political maneuvering he has ever seen. As such, Harrigan plans to meet up with Mavis at her next stop, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. But a clause in her contract with Superfine Pictures, Inc. forbids her to marry. Thus, it now falls to Morgan to guard against Mavis being tempted to reconsider otherwise. When Mavis’ Rolls Royce breaks down, she finds herself attracted to a muscled-up garage mechanic, Bud Norton (Randolph Scott) who is already engaged to Joyce Struthers (Margaret Perry). Her family runs the antiquated boardinghouse where Mavis is staying.

Despite Morgan's best efforts to part Mavis from Bud, she seduces Bud in the parlor, partly with the promise to promote his movie ‘sound’ machine once they return to Hollywood. Joyce is heart-broken. But her spinsterish aunt, Kate Barnaby (Elizabeth Patterson) encourages Joyce to stand her ground and fight for Bud with every last vestige of feminine wiles she possesses. Meanwhile, Harrigan tries to reach Mavis by telephone. Cross-talk about a kidnapping convinces Harrigan that Mavis is the one who has been kidnapped. To this end, he alerts the authorities. Now, the boarding house’s star-struck maid, Gladys (Isabel Jewell) hears of Mavis’ pseudo-kidnapping on the radio and, believing Morgan is her captor, informs the police. Meanwhile, Morgan lies to Mavis that Joyce is pregnant, resulting in her quashing Bud’s plans to accompany her to Hollywood. Upon learning of his deception, Mavis is furious with Morgan. Thus, when Harrigan and Gladys arrive with the police, set to arrest the alleged kidnapper, Mavis allows Morgan to be arrested. He confesses the only reason he lied to Mavis was because he is desperately in love with her himself. Rather affectionately, Mavis forgives him as the two drive away under a police escort, leaving Bud to reunite with Joyce.

Go West, Young Man was adapted by West from writer, Lawrence Riley’s Broadway smash, ‘Personal Appearance’. It ought to have been a sizable hit. Instead, it was panned by the critics and met with only so-so reception from audiences. Clearly, the toll of screen censorship was getting the better of West’s trademarked cheek. West’s last picture for Paramount was Every Day’s a Holiday (1937) – another to be savaged by the Breen Office’s respectability. For this latter effort, West was officially put on the blacklist, erroneously branded ‘box office poison’ in The Hollywood Reporter, along with fellow stars, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire, Dolores del Río, Katharine Hepburn and Kay Francis. Every Day’s a Holiday tells the tale of turn-of-the-century con artist, Peaches O’Day (West). Possessing a niggling admiration for Peaches, Captain Jim McCarey (Edmund Lowe) orders her to leave town or he will have to arrest her. Peaches manages to befriend the affluent, Von Reighle Van Pelter Van Doon (Charles Winninger) and his devoted valet, Larmadou Graves (Charles Butterworth). This trio attends a New Year's Eve celebration where Peaches' manager, Nifty Bailey (Walter Catlett), hits on an idea to rebrand Peaches as Fifi, a famous French chanteuse, thereby allowing her to return to New York incognito.

Donning a black wig, Peaches assumes Fifi’s persona. However, when she rebuffs the sexual advances of the corrupt Chief of Police, John Quade (Lloyd Nolan) he orders McCarey to close the show, citing it as a fire hazard. McCarey refuses and is relieved of his command. Still playing Fifi, Peaches entertains Quade at his office. When he is forced to step out for a moment, she steals her own criminal record, as well as those belonging to Quade's henchmen. Both McCarey and Quade become wise to Peaches' disguise. However, when Quade threatens to expose Peaches, McCarey throws him out of her dressing room. Hatching a plan, Peaches proposes McCarey run for mayor against Quade. This backfires when Quade’s goons kidnap McCarey just prior to his big address at Madison Square Garden. Instead, Peaches campaigns for McCarey, vowing to run on her own ticket if he does not reappear. Hearing this, McCarey eludes his kidnappers and appears in time to make his speech. However, it is now revealed Peaches paid Quade's goons to kidnap McCarey, but only to bolster his public appeal, returning their police files to them, in effect, to liberate Quade’s goons from the tyrannical sway and blackmail he once held over them. McCarey becomes Mayor, and wins the heart of Peaches – such as it is.

On December 12, 1937, West appeared with ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen on the radio to promote Every Day’s A Holiday. Alas, and yet again, her double entendre was to land her in hot water with the censors, flirting with Bergen’s dummy, Charlie McCarthy, whom she described as “all wood and a yard long”, adding, "Charles, I remember our last date, and have the splinters to prove it!” Despite such notoriety, Every Day’s a Holiday did only average box office. Paramount was only too pleased to oblige its star’s decision, not to renew her contract. In the interim, producer, David O. Selznick offered West the part of the world-weary madam, Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind (1939), after Tallulah Bankhead had already turned him down. West alas, could not see the virtue of appearing in a picture in which she was not billed as the star. It was a gamble to pay off handsomely when Universal, eager to snag West for a movie to co-star their big draw, W.C. Fields, signed her almost immediately to appear in My Little Chickadee (1940). After a hiatus of nearly 18 months, West was back on the screen and larger-than-life as ever. Scripted by Fields, My Little Chickadee cast West as Flower Belle Lee, a woman driven from town because of her affair with a masked bandit and sentenced to become respectable and married before she is allowed to return home. While aboard her train of exile, Flower meets the sottish, Cuthbert J. Twillie (Fields), and spying his formidable wealth, plots to make him her husband. Flower recruits her pal, Amos Budge (Donald Meek) to impersonate a minister. Amos marries the couple, who thereafter arrive in the lawless enclave of Greasewood where Flower immediately attracts the attentions of notorious town boss, Jeff Badger (Joseph Calliea) and Wayne Carter (Dick Forman), the courageous newspaper reporter, determined to liberate the town from Badger’s autocratic rule. Badger appoints Twillie town sheriff, guaranteed to make Flower a widow. However, when the local schoolmarm, Miss Foster falls ill, Flower assumes teaching the class. Now, to gain access to his wife's boudoir, Twillie masquerades as the masked bandit. Much to his chagrin, he is mistaken as such and arrested by police. Knowing that Twillie is innocent, Flower goes to Badger and, upon seducing him with a kiss, suddenly realizes he is actually the bandit. As the angry mob attempts to hang Twillie, Flower arrives with news of her discovery. She shoots Twillie free of his rope. When Flower reveals their marriage as a fraud, Twillie elects to go back east, leaving Flower as fair game for the next man.

My Little Chickadee was a smash, out-grossing Fields's previous film, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939) and even his follow-up, The Bank Dick (1940). Despite its popularity, West’s career prospects were hardly resurrected afterward. Indeed, 3 years would elapse before she re-appeared on the screen in The Heat’s On (1943), a tepid programmer for Columbia. However, the stringencies imposed upon West’s particular brand of sexy good humor by the Code were so extreme, even forcing the issue of her hem and necklines, it virtually soured the star on pursuing more roles in the movies. Apart from her guest appearance in a 1964 episode of TV’s Mr. Ed, and two ill-conceived ‘comebacks’, meant to spark a belated renaissance – 1970’s thoroughly bizarre, Myra Breckinridge, and 1977’s obscenely second-rate, Sextette, Mae West’s career in Hollywood had come to an abrupt end.  West’s popularity, however, was not to be left out in the cold. She retreated to Vegas, to Lou Walter’s The Latin Quarter, in a legendary run that packed audiences in, and then, marked a triumphant return to Broadway in a spoof of Russia’s Tsarina in ‘Catherine Was Great’ (1944) where, again, she was embraced by audiences for all her vigorous and ribald good humor. The show ran for a whopping 191 performances before going on a successful tour.  West also brought Diamond Lil back to the stage in 1949. Asked to quantify her success, West again knew her way around a loaded punch line. “Men come to see me…but I also give women something to see – wall to wall men!”  As an interesting aside, 50’s movie sex bomb, Jayne Mansfield later wed one of West’s muscle men, former Mr. Universe, Mickey Hargitay.

West was far from idle during this seemingly fallow period. She appeared on the live 1958 Oscar telecast, performing ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ with Rock Hudson – a moment to bring her a standing ovation. Throughout the 1950’s and 60’s West also became a wildly popular guest on various TV anthology programs, and, committed to writing her memoir, ‘Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It’ – later, updated with new content for a 1970 reprint. Over the decades, West was offered many a plum part to make her ‘comeback’ in Hollywood; everything from Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950), to ex-stripper, Vera Simpson in 1957’s movie reboot of Pal Joey, and Elvis Presley’s love interest in Roustabout (1964). Still smarting from all the negativity heaped upon her persona by the production code, West smartly turned them all down. Federico Fellini sought her particular brand of sass for Juliet of the Spirits (1964), then – later, Satyricon (1969). But again, West declined – this time, owing to Fellini’s stature, as well as her respect for it, rather politely. In the twilight of her life, West could take comfort that Hollywood’s self-governing censorship, by then, a thing of the past, yet seemingly dedicated to breaking her career down to bedrock, had not succeeded. In fact, she had outlived the naysayers to become a national treasure.

In 1976, popular prime time talk show host, Dick Cavett devoted a full program to her.  And West, also prolific as a recording artist since the mid-1930’s, was far from relying on her past to buoy these efforts. Instead, she embraced each new venture with a verve for the times, constantly to reinvent herself as a ‘contemporary performer’ and even embracing the ‘new’ rock n’ roll craze. In 1972, the same year as her final album, which included covers from The Doors, West was elected ‘Woman of the Century’ by the University of California – exalted as a pioneer against screen censorship and an early progressive in the women’s movement. Now, that’s a woman for all seasons, indeed! Retrospectively, it would have been interesting to see how much farther Paramount could have gone with Mae West, had her pictures clicked and the code lapsed in tandem. Looking back on her delightful spate of screen successes – and a couple of misfires – the criteria for all this sass was rather formulaic, with West perennially cast as the proverbial turn-of-the-century, knock-about gal with guts, unafraid to survive a world of men throwing themselves at her feet. Like the Astaire/Rogers partnership at RKO, West’s movies really never progressed beyond that recipe, the producers adopting an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ attitude to leave West permanently ensconced as the boisterous broad of sexualized bedlam. For the record, West never said, “Come on up and see me sometime.” But in reviewing Mae West on home video, most should agree, one trip to West’s boudoir will never be enough.

Kino Lorber’s release of all 9 of Mae West’s classics – the 8 made for Paramount, and her singular foray over at Universal, My Little Chickadee, all arrive, individually in hi-def but with intermittent quality. Owing to improperly archived elements over the years, and Universal, through Paramount’s shortsighted sell-off of their own deep catalog to EMI in the mid-50’s – now, the present custodian of West’s entire catalog – offer up an inconsistently rendered smorgasbord that truly crystalizes why Mae West was a legend, not only in her own time, but for all time! Some of the titles here have received a considerable video upgrade over the years while others continue to suffer precariously from neglect. It’s safe to say, there are no original camera negatives for any of these early Paramount releases. So, Uni, and Kino are working backward from protection elements of widely disparate quality. Night After Night (1932) and She Done Him Wrong (1933) are rather impressive, with a remarkably refined gray scale and film grain looking very indigenous to its source.  Owing to work done previously, age-related artifacts are kept to a bare minimum. These titles look better than good on Blu, and it’s gratifying to have them, finally, in hi-def. The Tiffany offering, however, is I’m No Angel (1933) – considered West’s best movie, and looking absolutely amazing on Blu-ray. The image is clean, refined and solid, with exceptional contrast and not a hint of age-related artifacts! Wow! What a pleasure to behold. From this stellar offering, arguably, quality has nowhere to go but down, and regrettably, does on Belle of the Nineties (1934) which, by my eyes, looks incredibly weak, as though to have been sourced from a 16mm blow-up held in perpetuity under a rock in someone’s backyard. The image is muddy, grainy, and riddled in artifacts. A real comedown and disappointment from the first three, disc offerings.

1935’s Going To Town marginally improves in overall clarity. But it also suffers from some chronic, if light, gate weave. 1936’s Go West Young Man, while still showing signs of age, actually looks rather respectable on Blu, with middling age-related damage the only real complaint in an otherwise mostly refined image harvest.  West’s other from this same year, Klondike Annie, is par for the course, solidly rendered from flawed masters, with improved contrast and serviceable audio. Every Day’s A Holiday (1937) is, by far, the worst looking 1080p transfer I have seen in a very long while. This one is hanging on by a thread. It’s soft, muddy, grainy, and generally unwatchable – only for West completionists, for sure. Now, for the good news: My Little Chickadee (1940) presents us with West and Fields at their most strikingly handsome in glorious B&W. Image resolution is truly a hi-def tour de force with excellent grain and perfect contrast – in short, a quality affair from top to bottom. There are audio commentaries included on these discs, from Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson on Night After Night, Klondike Annie, and, My Little Chickadee, Samm Deighan (I’m No Angel, Belle of the Nineties), David Del Valle and Kat Ellinger (separately, on She Done Him Wrong), Ellinger – again for Going to Town and Every Day’s A Holiday, and, Lee Gambin (Go West Young Man).  Of the lot, I thoroughly enjoyed the Nicholas/Nelson collaborations as well as Del Valle’s (recorded for the 1999 DVD release), with Deigham and Gambin almost as good. Aside: I really don’t get the proliferation of Kat Ellinger as a classic movie commentator. I’ve listened now to at least 10 of her commentaries for Kino Lorber product and have to say that without her offering ‘opinions’ on facts she often does not get right, she has exceptionally little to say – herein, or elsewhere. Note to Kino – get someone who knows their stuff to commit to these tracks. Finally, important to note that although these movies have been reviewed together, Kino Lorber offers no box set of West's movies at this time. These are individually packaged discs. Bottom line: the films of Mae West are an uneven spate at best – ditto for the hi-def transfers to compliment them here. West was a legendary performer that deserves her due on Blu. Were that a few of these could have looked better than they do! Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

Overall – 3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

Night After Night – 4

She Done Him Wrong – 4.5

I’m No Angel – 4.5

Klondike Annie – 3.5

Belle of the Nineties – 2

Going To Town - 3

Every Day’s a Holiday – 1

Go West Young Man – 3.5

My Little Chickadee – 5+

EXTRAS

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