Monday, July 26, 2010

Sex Symbols: Mae West

I've already written about most of the Hollywood sex symbols of the pre-Code era—Jean Harlow, Joan Blondell, Marlene Dietrich, or if you prefer, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo and Clara Bow. But before I put the era in this blog's rearview mirror, I should stop briefly to mention perhaps the most famous sex symbol of the age, Mae West.

Now let's be honest: although I nominated her for a Katie Award for her work in I'm No Angel, Mae West really doesn't work for me, not as an actress, not as a comedienne and certainly not as an object of fantasy. She took the role of sex goddess and dialed it up to "11," beyond vamp, beyond burlesque — playing so broadly, with the leer and the voice and the double entendres, that ultimately she became completely sexless, a threat to no one.

But maybe that's how she got away with it.

Born on August 17, 1893, in Brooklyn, New York, Mary Jane West started performing at the age of five and was a regular on the vaudeville circuit by the age of fourteen. In 1926, she had her first starring role on Broadway in a show she wrote herself, the subtly named Sex. The show sold over three hundred thousand tickets during its run but also resulted in a morals charge that landed West in the workhouse for eight days (with two days off for good behavior). The resulting publicity—she told reporters she wore silk underwear in prison—made her nationally famous.

West wrote other plays, but it was 1928's Diamond Lil that proved to be the turning point in her career. Set in the Bowery during the Gay Nineties, Diamond Lil is the story of a barroom singer who battles white slavers on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other. Broadway audiences loved it and although she was already pushing forty—ancient for a budding Hollywood actress—Paramount Pictures signed her to a movie contract.

Hollywood's censors prevented West from filming Diamond Lil as written, and instead, a watered-down version was released as She Done Him Wrong, co-starring Cary Grant and boasting the oft-misquoted line, "Why don't you come up some time and see me?"

She Done Him Wrong was nominated for an Academy Award as best picture of 1932-33 and in 1996, the Library of Congress included it in the National Film Registry.

If you're going to see only one Mae West movie, I would suggest I'm No Angel, the follow up to She Done Him Wrong. Again co-starring Cary Grant, here Mae West plays a circus performer who gyrates for the (as she puts it) "suckers," but as with all of her movies, the story is irrelevant. You're paying to see Mae West play Mae West and she does it better here than anywhere else, singing such numbers as "They Call Me Sister Honky-Tonk," spouting double entendres and, unusual for the times, hamming it up with a Greek chorus of African-American actresses who function as her only true friends and confidants.

West's films go rapidly downhill after Hollywood's studios began enforcing the Production Code in mid-1934—not much point to a Mae West movie without the innuendo. The best of the bunch is probably My Little Chickadee, a 1940 pairing with W.C. Fields. In 1978, she made her last movie, Sextette, a cinematic disaster that put the bomb in bombshell.

West was married twice, but had her longest relationship with Paul Novak, her live-in partner from 1954 until her death in 1980. He was thirty years her junior.

Among her better-known quips:

"It's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men."

"When I'm good, I'm very good. But, when I'm bad, I'm better."

"A hard man is good to find."


"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."


[To a policeman in 1936] "Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?"

"Never let one man worry your mind. Find 'em, fool 'em and forget 'em!"

"When women go wrong, men go right after them."

"Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution."

14 comments:

Uncle Tom said...

Sextette - Keith Moon actually has a funny (not to mention very short) role as a rather flamboyant dress designer in that movie -

You can actually find a clip on YouTube.

Tell your friends...

Mythical Monkey said...

Tell you friends...

I will.

Friends,
You can see Keith Moon in Mae West's Sextette by clicking on the highlighted link here.

Love and kisses,
Mythical Monkey

Mythical Monkey said...

And now something to gargle the taste of Mae West out of your mouth:

Here.

Uncle Tom said...

gargle indeed -

Did you know that four out of five dentists recommend the Who's Live at the Isle of Wight DVD (despite Murray Lerner's editing job) over other leading mouthwashs, rinses, sugarless gums and Isle of Wight DVD's?

Those madcap dentists

Erik Beck said...

I'm with you on not getting her appeal. I wrote the following in my review of She Done Him Wrong:

"Every moment she spends on screen I want to stop watching and that’s a bad sign when she spends most of the time on screen (thankfully it is the shortest Best Picture nominee ever)."

I didn't find her sexy, funny or interesting. I just found her irritating.

Anonymous said...

Mae West is amazing!

Maybe it takes being a woman to appreciate her.

D. Devine said...

Mae West was and is an American institution. Writing most every one of her plays and screen plays, she was a true original. She had a "low sex" quality that was not fragile and was in fact, the aggressor. Her eyes said more than any of the other women mentioned herein could do with their entire bodies. She could also make it funny when she wanted to. Many men cannot handle a strong, successful woman, apparently. She lived off screen, the same love life she lived onscreen. By 1935 she was the highest paid woman in America.

She was an extraordinary comedian with excellent timing. She took it all back to stage by 1943, where she was not censored and toured to wild success for decades after with her plays. She was in a class all her own. Her name is in the dictionary...

Mythical Monkey said...

I confess, I always find it a bit disconcerting to find that anyone is actually reading this blog. Like Emily Dickinson, I prefer to write my poetry while hiding behind a chair.

Then why do I publish what I write? To turn the psychic screws, I think, that force me to think about the subject in something other than an off-hand way.

I have great respect for Mae West and her place in film history. And during the pre-Code era -- She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel -- you get a sense of what she might have been like on the stage, a real maverick kicking down the doors of bluenosed Victorian prudishness.

I should revisit her work. I wrote this three and a half years ago. I like to think my brain has gotten bigger, or at least more open. You have to keep pushing the boundaries -- if you only go places you've already been, you never go anywhere, right?

Michael Carvalho Silva said...

The brothers André Di Mauro and Cláudia Mauro, the singers Lulo Scroback who is brazilian and Samantha Fox who is english and the actresses and models of italian heritage Selma Egrei and Stefania Rocca are the six sexiest and most stunning worldest sexual dreams ever. They all are much more than only sex symbols or sex icons. They all are real sexual dreams. Forever and ever.

Mythical Monkey said...

I remember Samantha Fox -- hubba hubba! I'll look the others up -- thanks!

Michael Carvalho Silva said...

You are welcome, my dear friend. The blonde and statuesque american film actress Rena Riffel who starred Striptease with Demi Moore in the leading role is stunningly gorgeous and hottest than thousand hells togheter aswell. Rena is one of the greatest and most spetacular worldest sex symbols ever.

Michael Carvalho Silva said...

The blonde and statuesque american film actress Rena Riffel who starred in the classic erotic film Striptease with Demi Moore in the leading role is stunningly gorgeous and hottest than thousand hells togheter aswell. Rena is one of the greatest and most spetacular worldest sex symbols ever. And the dark-haired and voluptuous american actor and producer Angelo Tiffe is the sexiest man in the world and the greatest and sexiest worldest male sex symbol ever aswell.

Michael Carvalho Silva said...

Dear Friend Mythical Monkey, i forgot to tell you that Dilma Lóes, Carla Gravina, Jessica Walter, Donovan Scott, Nick Nolte and the brazilian softcore film actor Roberto Miranda are the six sexiest and most instigating worldest cinematic sex symbols ever.

Michael Carvalho Silva said...

Captain America with Dracula, Hercules and Elektra from Marvel and the two Drop Dead Gorgeous and provocative brazilian female vampires Mirza and Naiara are the six greatest worldest comic books characters ever.