MAE WEST
I’M NO ANGEL 1933
WESLEY RUGGLES
Mae West was born Mary Jane West in Bushwick in Brooklyn on Aug 17 1893. Her mother was a corset and fashion model; her father was a prize fighter who fought under the name of Battlin’ Jack West and also worked as a “special policeman” and had is own private investigative agency.
Her paternal grandmother Mary Jane (for whom she was named) was Irish Catholic and her paternal grandfather was of English Scots descent and was a ship’s rigger. Her mother’s side of the family was German from Bavaria. She was raised protestant.
The family moved to different parts of Brooklyn – Williamsburg and Greenpoint as well as Woodhaven in Queens. It is in Nier’s Social Hall in Woodhaven when she is supposed to have first appeared professionally on stage.
She appeared in1907 in Vaudeville and later adopted a number of personas including male impersonator and a “blackface coon shouter” – a singer of “Black songs”. Following on the heels of this form of entertainment came “the Pansy craze” of the late 20’s and early 30’s when gay clubs and gay performers achieved a high “underground” popularity. The “craze” ends in 1933 with the election of democratic president FDR and the repeal of prohibition. It is said that it was from some of the female impersonators that West developed her distinctive walk.p> Mae West began to appear in roles on Broadway with stars like Ed Wynn, in Sometime in which she danced the shimmy (a dance sometimes thought to be obscene). It involves basically keeping the body still and moving the right should out and the left back and then the reverse, rather quickly.
Under the name Jane Mast, West wrote and starred in her 0wn play Sex. This was her first starring role on Broadway. He critics didn’t like it, but ticket sales were good. The public officials (bless their hearts who always know best) had the theater raided and the cast was arrested. He was sentenced to 10 days for corrupting the morals of the youth. She claimed to have dined with the warden. She got tremendous press coverage which enhanced her career.
Her next show, The Drag, had try-outs in Connecticut and New Jersey. She described it as a “comedy drama of life” and dealt with homosexuality. The New York Society for he Suppression of Vice managed o keep the play from opening in NY.
West claimed not to be a feminist but supported women’s rights and was an early supporter of gay rights.
She wrote several other plays including Diamond Lil about a woman in the 1890’s who is rather open about her sexuality. It was a big hit and sold out regularly.
She is known for her risqué dialog fraught with double entendres.
In 1932 she made a picture deal with Paramount. She was 40 at the time – virtually an unheard of thing for a woman. She appeared with George Raft in Night after Night in a small role and was upset about it until they let her rewrite her scenes. In it she is involved with the famous exchange:
Raft later said she stole everything in the film except the cameras
By 1933 Paramount was on the verge of bankruptcy and allowed West to make She Done Him Wrong. It is said she spotted Cary Grant at the studio and said “If he can talk I want him”. It was one of his first major roles. The film was a box office hit, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture and saved Paramount from bankruptcy.
Her next film, I’m No Angel also had Cary Grant and was a huge hit – the most successful of her career.
The imposition of the production code on July 1 1934 caused her films to be edited dramatically Even titles like It Ain’t No Sin had to be changed to the more acceptable Belle of the Nineties.
In 1939 she was approached by Universal to do a film with W.C. Fields, another famous comedian at the time. He film was My Little Chickadee (1940). The film spoofs their own careers and he Western genre and is funnier if the viewer is more familiar with their work.There seem to have been numerous problems. The two are reported not to have gotten along, both personally and in their styles of acting. West needed absolute adherence to the script whereas Fields preferred ad-libbing dialog. West wrote most of the script, but fields wrote a lengthy scene in a bar. They were given equal credit and this infuriated West.
The film however out-grossed Fields You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man made the year before and The Bank Dick made the following year.
Like Fields, west in an attempt to halt a sagging career put in an appearance on the Edgar Bergen Charlie McCarthy show (ventriloquist and dummy) and did her own typical kind of lines with him ("Your kisses give me splinters"). She also appeared in an Arch Obler sketch where she played Eve in Eden with Don Ameche. The studio received many letters complaining about the sketch. The FCC called it vulgar and indecent. NBC Said it was all West’s fault from her intonation and banned her and the mention of her name on any of their stations. It was abput 12 years before she returned to the radio on the Perry Como show.
She appeared in some comedies on Broadway and in a Las Vegas act surrounded by body builders like Mark Forrest and Mickey Haggarty (who would later marry Jayne Mansfield).
West had been married once – maybe twice although she claimed the first marriage was in name only. The second is thought to have been under an assumed name. She also was involved for a while with an attorney James Timony who was 15 years older than she.
At 61, West became emotionally involved with merchant marineman turned muscle man from her act named Paul Novak (born Chester Rybinski and was also a wrestler named who was 30 years her junior. (He changed his name legally to Charles H. (Chuck) Krauser whenhe became a professional wrestler. They were together for 26 years.
A
fter the Film
Although often associated with verbal material, like double entendres, they are not all sexual in their ambiguities. "I changed my mind" says one of the men. "Does the new one work any better?" quips West.
There is a good deal of visual comediy associated with Mae West, whose self sexually assured position allows her to deal with the body on display - not because some man is pushing her to do it, but because she likes to do it.
Consider her first appearance on the runway at the carnival is set out. A (presumably) red carpet is rolled out; trumpet players announce her arrival, the curtain parts and West "struts her stuff". She has another dramatic enttrance in the circus where she appears riding an elephant. Her entraance to greet guests inher dressing room is an "entrance" as is her entrance into the living room of her apartment at one point, She is always "on".The court room scene is "pure theater" and the jury (and the films audience) are warned of her theatrics
Her body language, which includes her famous walk, her putting her hands behind her hair abd runnng her hands over her hips are all "performance" type of movements. At different periods, different parts of the woman's body are seen as erotic - sometimes the ankle, neck or forearm.
Notice the camera placement in these shots which are usually long enough shots to inclde a full bdy view, At other times, the camera dpes close ups of her face. It is clear that the camera is looking at her, and although it is a "male gaze", it is West who is directing it.
Edition and Timing
Cuts are quick and the end of a scene with jokes to keep the pace up. "Beulah, peel me a grape cuts almost before the line is finished. Costuming
Lion tamer outfit (somewhat masculine looking. Indication of her role is more dominant than most women. She puts her head in the lion's (not lioness's) mouth showing some dominance over males.
Later her dress has spider webs on it a sure sign of a vamp
The film is considered a kind of "sophisticated comedy" (which often uses upper class in jokes). Women are given equal or near equal status to men – usually verbal rather than physical, although occasionally some verbal fights degenerate into physical ones. These comedies deal with inversion of social status as comic. The reversal of male and female roles goes back at least as far as 411 BC and the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes. By the 1960's much of West's work was considered “Camp”.
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the word (with reference to performance) as