Goin' to Town

In Going' To Town Mae West enacts her own version of the Horatio Alger story. She rises from dance hall queen, to millionaire, to high society, and finally to a title. Mae starts this rise by being a 'good woman to a bad man'.

The bad man is Fred Kohler who mixed cattle rustling with a lot of legitimate money and pays the ultimate price. He leaves everything to his fiancé Mae West. It's the beginning of her rise.

All the time she's got her eye fixed on Englishman Paul Cavanaugh who she knows as the engineer drilling for oil on Kohler's and now her property. She doesn't know at first he's an heir to a title, but she finds out soon enough.

Mae really comes into her own in this film. In previous films she had George Raft and Cary Grant twice as leading men. Going' To Town is a film she carries all by herself.

Cavanaugh is the film's weakness. Not a strong enough personality to be a lead, one can't figure out why Mae's so set on him. Someone like Leslie Howard would have really given that part some character. And what a team that would have been.

Still this film is all Mae West. And that's all you need.