Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Thursday, June 10, 2010




Mae West Brought to Heel







Belle of The Nineties was the Mae West I encountered often after school on 4:00 Channel 8 movies. They were winding down a pre-48 Paramount group bought earlier in the sixties that I'd committed to memory over multiple broadcasts. Each weekday saw black-and-white filler bridging hours between soap operas and evening news. At Channel 8, they Dialed For Dollars to give us reason for tolerating films too oft-repeated. If hostess Jo Nelson called and you answered, there might be $100 or free groceries for the taking. Jo sometimes got busy signals but kept trying (often for interminable minutes) while viewers waited for identified-by-name recipients to get off their phones (yes, she recited numbers and where they lived): Mr. Brown doesn't seem to be at his residence on 134 Kensington Drive, but maybe we'll try again tomorrow. But what was left of Mr. Brown's valuables once he arrived back? Such concerns vital now mattered less during that vid-age of innocence. My own greater worry was footage excised from Belle of the Nineties and similarly imperiled oldies as Jo dialed after viewer truants (never me ... too far outside Channel 8's triad market). Hadn't enough of Mae West's offering been cut when newly empowered 1934 scissors were applied?


























My posting motor started upon discovery of a pressbook for It Ain't No Sin (at Cinevent ... one more reason not to miss those). So what was this lavish manual selling? Not a lost Mae West as it turns out ... well, maybe it was ... a sacrificed one might better describe leavings of censor mischief that emerged finally as Belle Of the Nineties. I'd seen posters bearing the discarded title. Paramount had its sales force well afield before reining in It Ain't No Sin. Was that title a gauntlet thrown before Breen and compatriots (which included an enraged Legion Of Decency)? I wonder if the same ID with Sylvia Sidney or Nancy Carroll would have caused such rancor. Mae West was surely chief lightning rod for repression's new authority, being offered up as reason we needed a Code. There are many books about censor wars in Hollywood. I get depressed reading such, especially ones explaining cuts made and shorn footage discarded (for all time in most cases). Not much fun mulling over something we can't go back and fix. Folks who've written of how Mae West saved Paramount from ruin, including at least one Paramount executive of the day, are on target, I suspect. She was one star that really did come to the rescue of an ailing employer. I can't measure anticipation for It Ain't No Sin in 1934, but on heels of She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel, it must have been immense. Those last two had been respective friskiest movies in (every) town, and this humdinger promised to be capper to both.





























I think what shot Belle Of The Nineties was word getting out that the picture had been denuded. Everyone knew what they saw wasn't what Mae West and company intended. Here was a pale pomegranate being sold as worthy successor to hot tamales of seasons past, not to be repeated thanks to PCA crackdown. Thirties fans talked non-stop about movies and read constantly of Hollywood insiding. They followed Paramount's struggle and resented the cheat that was Belle Of The Nineties. Some theatres tried fooling customers as here when the Chicago claimed to be running Paramount's picture presented exactly as it was produced, everyone wise to reality of Belle Of The Nineties re-filmed and recut per censor mandates. Variety seemed on defensive reporting delighted crowds and satisfied exits. Were they helping prop up a lame duck? Accounts of the day and since claim Belle was a hit. Much was spent making it, to wit $877,764.04, more than twice what prior Wests cost. Did Belle get it back plus enough to record black ink? That I don't have for certain, but reason suggests this was Mae's biggest sock-cess to date. She'd built up a monster following, and would have needed more than one blow to put her on canvass. Those came later sure enough, but for now there was residual good will to pull Belle Of The Nineties across.






































Depending on expectation, Belle Of The Nineties plays or it won't. Those seeking unfettered precode West will be disappointed as audiences were in 1934. Interest in the actress has diminished in any case since plateaus reached during late 60's/early 70's. I don't think there'll ever be a renewal of the Mae West cult. You can tell just watching Belle Of The Nineties that it's been tampered with. Scenes tail off unexpectedly and others look pasted in. Mae reminds a character early on to Remember, I'm a lady, almost a declaration that there's only so much fun we'll be permitted to have. Belle was evidently in and out of production for months while Paramount quarreled with Breen. Seals granted were undone by state and local board objections. Mae West was off/on rewriting, shooting yet again ... performing everything but flips to get it releasable. I'm amazed Belle Of The Nineties runs so smoothly as it does. The fact Leo McCarey directed matters little. His is a well faded signature here. I'd have thought Paramount would be ideal roost for McCarey, what with his expertise at comedy and so many fun makers on Para payrolls, but he seems not to have jibed with any of them, a condition reflecting less on McCarey than personalities no director could harness (Fields and the Marx Bros. in addition to West). A vow he took not to work with MW again after Belle Of The Nineties would be observed. Maybe had she listened closer to McCarey, a post-Code decline might have been averted (or at least postponed), but West was mistress of her own destiny and took direction from nobody. The whole Belle Of The Nineties production mess has been covered in gratifying detail by Jon Tuska in The Films Of Mae West (one of the best Citadel offerings) and Mark Vieira's Sin In Soft Focus, finest by far of what's been written on the precode era.

More Mae West at Greenbriar Archives ... Parts One and Two of Mae West Glamour Starter and Night After Night.

1 Comments:

Blogger John McElwee said...

An e-mail from Donald Benson re Mae West and "Belle Of The Nineties" ...


If memory serves, "Belle of the Nineties" has a scene where Mae leaves a party and one of the blander male guests says something to the effect that nobody has any fun after she goes to bed. It's odd because the actor strips it of any innuendo and Mae doesn't even seem to hear it -- either it's a remnant of a cut joke or West was simply hoping to sneak in a vaguely suggestive straight line her fans could complete.


West had a reputation as a diva, but I recall one where she played a celebrity stranded in a small town. A youngish female comic was allowed to chomp up scenery, but the official good girl seemed to get shoved aside in West's favor. You'd think West would let the bland heroine have her moments and keep the funny one on a leash.


Concerning that line you mentioned, Donald, I noticed that too when I watched, and wondered why there wasn't at least some reaction to its very suggestive content, but as you said, it just sort of evaporates ...

5:43 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024