She Done Him Wrong

Mae West is another one of those actresses that played the same role time after time. She played Mae West. What distinguishes the movies are the lines and she was a masterful created of double entendre with a big load of sex. She would surround herself with the actors of the day, like Gilbert Roland and Wallace Beery. The one that benefited the most here was Cary Grant. It's hard to realize that he goes back so far. I have to admit that for mot of my life I found West's thing to be off handed and tiresome. But now I know that she had great timing and and interesting stage presence. She could deliver a "dirty" line like no other. This gave us the famous like, "Come up and see me sometime."

"She Done Him Wrong" is an early hit film for both Mae West and Cary Grant. West is Lady Lou and Grant is Captain Cummings. Other key players include Owen Moore as Chick Clark, Gilbert Roland as Serge Stanieff, Noah Beery as Gus Jordan, David Landau as Dan Flynn, and Rafaeta Ottiano as Russian Rita. The cast are all good and the story is interesting, if a little slow. Others describe the plot, and I thought some movie buffs would be interested in some of the background of the movie and the stars.

This film is credited as the movie that made Mae West a star. It was only her second film, but first lead role. She already had made her mark on Broadway where she acted in plays that she wrote for herself. In an introduction on the DVD of this movie, host Robert Osborne says that this film saved Paramount studios from bankruptcy. Paramount was due to go under, but the box office from "She Done Him Wrong" put the company back in the black. And, with Mae West as the studio's new star, Paramount continued on its track back as one of the big filmmakers. The movie also helped push Cary Grant's career. Grant had risen to male leads in three films the year before.

A check of histories elsewhere affirms that Mae West's two films in 1933 (the other being "I'm No Angel") were a boost to Paramount, but none attributed the recovery directly to that. The company remained in trouble for a time. Studio head Adolph Zukor is credited with pulling the company out of receivership. He had also acquired a number of other top stars along with West and Grant. Those included Claudette Colbert, Bing Crosby, Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, Jeanette MacDonald, and the Marx Brothers. They all made some hit movies that helped restore Paramount's star.

Osborne related some interesting background on this movie. Mae West had written and starred in the hit 1928 Broadway play on which it is based, "Diamond Lil." But, when Paramount bought the movie rights, apparently the Production Code office notified the studio that there was no way it could make "Diamond Lil" into a movie. The play was far too racy for the motion picture industry's new standards. So, Mae West, the other writers and the director went to work to revise the film. The first thing they did was change the name. The new screenplay replaced racy dialog and scenes with innuendo and double entendre. Osborne said that Mae West later was quoted as saying that the Production Code led to better movies because the studios wrote better stories with innuendo and suggestion that made them much funnier than they were otherwise.

It's interesting too that West made only 13 films in her movie career. Three of those were more than two decades after she left Hollywood in 1943 to return to the stage and nightclub entertaining. She was 87 and living in Hollywood when she died in 1980. Of course, all those other names above from Paramount went on to become huge stars as well.

This is a good film, but nothing special. West made only two films considered very good –"'I'm No Angel" and "My Little Chicaddee." She was more of a sex symbol with a come-on persona, than she was an actress. She had some good years on stage, acting and writing, and she worked the nightclub circuit for most of her career. Here, West sings "Frankie and Johnny," which may be the first time that long-time popular American song was used in the movies.

Mae West is certainly entertaining with her wisecracks and sexual innuendo. Unfortunately, she's the only entertaining thing about this whole film. The other actors, even a young Cary Grant, aren't given terribly interesting characters to inhabit. The whole thing is set-bound and the story is nonsense.

Okay, maybe not nonsense, but it is cluttered with too many subplots and one-note characters which fail to hold interest. The first ten minutes are a pain to sit through, mainly because West isn't there to enliven the proceedings. That should not be.

She Done Him Wrong (1933) is an interesting curio and a showcase for Mae West, but as entertainment, it is lacking.

After a supporting role in the George Raft film Night After Night, Paramount films realized what a gold mine they had in Mae West. Between her and a young radio singer named Bing Crosby, they pulled Paramount from the brink of bankruptcy, the white mountain studio nearly went under in the early Thirties.

After this the studio gave Mae her head in choosing material and she decided to use one of her own original plays, She Done Him Wrong. The story is set in the Bowery district of the 1890s and New York of the 1890s is where Mae grew up, she had a good ear and a good memory for character types she uses in the film.

Mae always plays Mae West and would you really want her as anyone else? She's a Bowery entertainer of the period, working in this case for Noah Beery's club as the main attraction. Beery's into some really shady business, he doubles in white slavery and nearly gets innocent Rochelle Hudson who tries to kill herself in his club. Mae saves her, but turns her over to Beery because she doesn't know about his other sideline. All she knows is that he pays off in diamonds as well as cash.

Besides Beery panting after her, we've got silent screen star Owen Moore, young Gilbert Roland who is the assistant to white slaver Rafaela Ottiana and in the film that would be his breakthrough, Cary Grant as a Salvation Army worker who's not all he seems. Mae personally picked Grant for his role, he was a young Paramount contract player beginning to get some notice. But as I said before in my review of I'm No Angel, this is not a Cary Grant film, this is a Mae West film.

Mae besides being one of the great sex symbols of the last century had a great memory and eye for detail of the bawdy Bowery of her youth. Good thing she came along before The Code was put in place. Her first films are her best, The Code definitely hampered her style.

And Mae West if she had anything, had style.

She Done Him Wrong (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Set during the "Gay Ninetiest," Mae West stars as Lady Lou, a nightclub singer who pretty much seduces and vamps over any man that enters the club. Since she has her pick of the litter she sets her sights on the handsome Captain Cummings (Cary Grant).

To say SHE DONE HIM WRONG was 100% Mae West would be an understatement. The actress was a smash on Broadway and her sexual act was quite legendary even during a time when that type of thing wasn't always wanted or allowed. Her stage play was attempted to get on the big screen for a couple years before this film finally did it even though it had to be watered down some. With that said, there's still plenty of sexuality on display here, although you can't help but think this is one of the films that helped eventually bring on the Production Code.

As far as the film goes, it was a smash when it was originally released and it even got a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Watching it today the film is obviously not as strong but at the same time you can't help but watch it and just imagine how people must have felt about it in 1933. The main reason to watch this is of course for the performance of West who is pretty much playing herself. The over-the-top, heated sexuality is actually a lot of fun to watch. You know, I've never found her to be an "attractive" woman but the way she forces her sexuality is just something that works.

The supporting cast is quite good including Grant in another early role where he's pretty much playing that good looking guy that's the object of the main characters affection. Owen Moore, Noah Beery, Sr. and Gilbert Roland are all good as well. The screenplay is another plus or at least the dialogue spoken by West is. She gets a couple classic lines and her delivery is certainly a plus. With that said, the story itself is pretty hit and miss but the 66-minute running time does fly by.