Focus Features

Mae West strikes a pose

Recently, Mae West was on the front page of Variety. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, she had saved Paramount from bankruptcy. Variety asked: Who's the Mae West of today - who is going to save the studios from the economic crisis today?

Mae West, born August 17, 1893, was a phenomenon, an outlaw who brought sex to the Broadway stage – her plays were called Sex, The Pleasure Man, The Constant Sinner – and then put it on display in the movies: Night After Night, She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel.

Her movies were such a huge success that in 1934 she was the highest paid performer in the US.

Part of the appeal was her distinctive brand of humor:  

Why did you admit to knowing so many men?
It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men.

Are you in town for good?
I expect to be here, but not for good.

May we ask what types of men you prefer?
Just two, domestic and foreign.

Where are you stopping during your visit here?
Stoppin’ at nothin'.

What kind of husband do you think I should git?
Why don't you take a single man an' leave the husbands alone.

When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

But one aspect of her movies has been overlooked: she was instrumental in bringing black music to a mainstream audience – against the censorship of the times.  In fact, in Britain, what were called “Negro Spirituals” were deleted from films.

In his book about Mae West, Simon Louvish brings out this point:

Mae with guitar

“For her New Orleans numbers in Belle of the Nineties, Mae West racked up one stubborn victory: the hiring of Duke Ellington and his band, whooping it up in a rare appearance in a mainstream picture of this era. The studio was said to have objected to the expense, saying they could cast cheap black extras and dub the music, but at least Mae prevailed. Thus enabled, Mae could deliver the classic blues number that her New York maid Bea Jackson had brought forth from Perry Bradford's Harlem-era party back in 1923: He Was Her Man, But He Came to See Me Sometime.

Mae belts out the song's mischievous lines dressed all in white with perhaps the largest feather ever seen on her hat: 'Now he was her man, but he came up to see me sometime / I live six flights up, and he sure was willin' to climb..."

Mae's other songs in the film imbue it with a sense of melancholy that is unique in all Mae's movie work: the poignant torch song – ‘My old flame / I can't even think of his name...' - and her 'Negro Spiritual' lament. In the early drafts of the script it is clear that Mae was supposed to deliver this song in the midst of Brother Eben's evangelical prayer meeting, but the racial exigencies of the time evidently required that she be separated from it, at least in space.  The director, Leo McCarey, solved this problem by superimposing her singing close-up on long-shots of the congregants, who have been shot against a studio curtain which reflects the rippling river as shadows behind them, their waving hands and heads bobbing in ecstasy framing her face.  The scene is highly unsettling, as the chanters shake and shiver in their exorcism of the devil, projected by the optical tricks and cutting almost as if they were Mae's familiars, calling out her own demons from the very depths of her soul.' 

Extract taken from: Mae West: It Ain't No Sin by Simon Louvish (Faber & Faber, 2006).

Essential Viewing: I'm No Angel [Buy], He Done Her Wrong, Belle of the Nineties [Buy], My Little Chickadee [Buy]

Mae West strikes a pose

Recently, Mae West was on the front page of Variety. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, she had saved Paramount from bankruptcy. Variety asked: Who's the Mae West of today - who is going to save the studios from the economic crisis today?

Mae West, born August 17, 1893, was a phenomenon, an outlaw who brought sex to the Broadway stage – her plays were called Sex, The Pleasure Man, The Constant Sinner – and then put it on display in the movies: Night After Night, She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel.

Her movies were such a huge success that in 1934 she was the highest paid performer in the US.

Part of the appeal was her distinctive brand of humor:  

Why did you admit to knowing so many men?
It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men.

Are you in town for good?
I expect to be here, but not for good.

May we ask what types of men you prefer?
Just two, domestic and foreign.

Where are you stopping during your visit here?
Stoppin’ at nothin'.

What kind of husband do you think I should git?
Why don't you take a single man an' leave the husbands alone.

When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

But one aspect of her movies has been overlooked: she was instrumental in bringing black music to a mainstream audience – against the censorship of the times.  In fact, in Britain, what were called “Negro Spirituals” were deleted from films.

In his book about Mae West, Simon Louvish brings out this point:

Mae with guitar

“For her New Orleans numbers in Belle of the Nineties, Mae West racked up one stubborn victory: the hiring of Duke Ellington and his band, whooping it up in a rare appearance in a mainstream picture of this era. The studio was said to have objected to the expense, saying they could cast cheap black extras and dub the music, but at least Mae prevailed. Thus enabled, Mae could deliver the classic blues number that her New York maid Bea Jackson had brought forth from Perry Bradford's Harlem-era party back in 1923: He Was Her Man, But He Came to See Me Sometime.

Mae belts out the song's mischievous lines dressed all in white with perhaps the largest feather ever seen on her hat: 'Now he was her man, but he came up to see me sometime / I live six flights up, and he sure was willin' to climb..."

Mae's other songs in the film imbue it with a sense of melancholy that is unique in all Mae's movie work: the poignant torch song – ‘My old flame / I can't even think of his name...' - and her 'Negro Spiritual' lament. In the early drafts of the script it is clear that Mae was supposed to deliver this song in the midst of Brother Eben's evangelical prayer meeting, but the racial exigencies of the time evidently required that she be separated from it, at least in space.  The director, Leo McCarey, solved this problem by superimposing her singing close-up on long-shots of the congregants, who have been shot against a studio curtain which reflects the rippling river as shadows behind them, their waving hands and heads bobbing in ecstasy framing her face.  The scene is highly unsettling, as the chanters shake and shiver in their exorcism of the devil, projected by the optical tricks and cutting almost as if they were Mae's familiars, calling out her own demons from the very depths of her soul.' 

Extract taken from: Mae West: It Ain't No Sin by Simon Louvish (Faber & Faber, 2006).

Essential Viewing: I'm No Angel [Buy], He Done Her Wrong, Belle of the Nineties [Buy], My Little Chickadee [Buy]