She Done Him Wrong ('33)

"Listen, when women go wrong, men go right after them."

SHE DONE HIM WRONG

a pre-code saloon-set romantic comedy

directed by Lowell Sherman

 "You know I, I always did like a man in a uniform. And that one fits you grand. Why don't you come up sometime and see me. I'm home every evening."

Talk about She Done Him Wrong is talk about Lady Lou (Mae West) dominating the screen. Liking her is the same as liking the movie. It's not the mere fact that she's the main character, it's that her behavior and attitude captivate beyond the normal. She's to this movie what Tom Power (James Cagney) is to The Public Enemy. She's a sex gangster.

The movie could be played in science museums under the title MAE WEST: FORCE OF NATURE. She'd double-feature with tornados.

The setting is New York, Bowery, in the 1890s: Lou sings in a saloon owned by her benefactor Gus (Noah Beery), whose charming Russian partner Sergei (Gilbert Roland) shows romantic interest in Lou. An unscrupulous sexual and business rival of Gus's, Dan (David Landau), haunts the saloon, desperate to win Lou's affections.

The saloon's atmosphere envelops the movie, it's portrayed from: Lou's bedroom, the bar area, the back-alley, and the stage; most of the movie's action takes place in the building. It's a late-early entry for cinematographer Charles Lang, who would go on to shoot many more movies, including Ace in the Hole, One-Eyed Jacks, How the West Was Won, The Magnificent Seven, and Some Like it Hot. Here the camera feels wooden and flat. It's missing dynamism.

 The script, noted for Lou's crackling repartee and bawdy double entendres, is a censor-lightened version of West's play Diamond Lil. It may be no small coincidence that in 1934, the year after this movie's release, Hollywood instituted the production code. 

Director Lowell Sherman began his career as an actor. He directed thirteen features, sometimes directing himself. If he was of any use to West and Grant I'm not sure, but he was of no use to cinema (here).

Chick: "You'd sell your heart and lungs for a handful of diamonds, and I'm doing a stretch with the rats and the bugs so you can have them."

Ex-squeeze Chick (Owen Moore) does time for the robbery of diamonds meant for Lou. He's okay with the stretch if Lou's waiting for him, but has crazy suspicions she's being 'unfaithful.'

Sergei: "See, they make your eyes sparkle. And your teeth clean like pearls. Oh you are beautiful. I love you so. The men of my country go wild about women with yellow hair."

Lou: "I'm glad you told me, I want to keep straight on my geography."

Sergei: "I love you. You were made for love, and for love only should you care. And now surely you have enough diamonds."

Lou: "Oooh. Diamonds is my career."

Sergei: "I swear I shall make you happy. I shall die to make you happy."

Lou: "Aaii, but you wouldn't be much use to me dead."

She's the sun of this sexual galaxy. Often her costumes, by a young Edith Head, sparkle. Although dress and body fashions have shifted since the 30's, and social attitudes and behaviors have changed, Lou still literally sparkles. And it's not so much the diamonds and fancy hairstyles and dresses that are magnetic, but the self-confidence Lou radiates.

Captain Cummings: "Well they're wonderful. But they always seem so cold to me. They have no warmth, no soul. I'm sorry you think more of your diamonds than you do of your soul."

Lou: "Well, I'm sorry you think more of my soul than you do of my diamonds. (laugh) Maybe I ain't got no soul."

 Lou wants to fuck the virtuous Captain Cummings (Cary Grant). He's the one she can't have, so the one she wants most of all.

When Chick breaks out of jail he makes his way to Lou,

throws an abusive hissy fit

and pleads for her to run away with him.

And he's only one of her problems. Gus and his partners, to Lou's surprise, are involved in illegal activities, and a federal agent codename The Hawk is after them. Worse, Lou murders Sergei's lover in a fight over a knife.

Combing the hair of her murder victim

Her life on the brink of chaos, the walls closing in, it takes the man with the right kind of love to end Lou's troubles.