Kymm Zuckert Uncovers the Diamond Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933, dir. Lowell Sherman, US)

I don't know if I had ever seen a Mae West film all the way through, and I'll bet there are many people who know exactly who she is and have seen her and can pick her out of a lineup and even do an impression of her, yet have not seen one of her actual films.

West was very unusual for the time in that she was her own screenwriter, and was the complete creator of the Mae West character for 20 years in the theatre before she got anywhere near movies. Of course, she had to wait for the movies to not only be invented, but be talkies - she would not have fared well in the silent cinema.

She Done Him Wrong is pre-Code, and, I believe, was one of the films that actually made the Code come to fruition, because it is pretty dirty. Mae West is definitely living with a man without benefit of clergy, and the movie makes it clear that it's not the first time.

All men are obsessed with her on first meeting, and if you are going to write that movie for yourself, you had better be sure that your mouth isn't writing checks that your ass can't cash, but Mae West's ass is perfectly capable of all the check-cashing you like. She doesn't appear for the first ten minutes of the film, but everyone spends all that time talking about her, and it's quite the star entrance.

Baby Cary Grant is in this - one of his first films - as a missionary, and is visibly Cary Grant the movie star even then.

The film takes place in the 1890s, which was forty years before the film was made, which means that were it made today, it would take place in the 1980s. Forgive me as I crumble into a pile of dust and blow away.

Gus Jordan (Noah Beery Sr.) is the boss of a saloon and dance hall and of all of the crooked dealing on the Bowery. Our Mae is Lady Lou, his girl, but apparently only because her former beau, Chick Clark (Owen Moore), was sent up the river. Dan Flynn (David Landau), wants to catch Gus being a crook so that he can take over the rackets, and also Lady Lou. Captain Cummings (Cary Grant), the missionary, is trying to reform the customers of the saloon, while Russian Rita (Raphaela Ottiano) and Sergei Stanieff (Gilbert Roland) are suspicious Russian people who are in cahoots with Gus, but they all make it clear that Lou knows nothing about whatever nefarious plans they have. Lou may be a Loose Woman, a Harlot, a Floozy, and she’ll do a lot for a Diamond, but she isn’t actually bad, not like most of the other people in this picture.

She looks out for herself, playing these men off of each other: Chick, her ex who thinks he’s still her only man, Dan, who wants her come what may, and frankly no matter what she wants, and of course Gus, her current sugar daddy. But once she finds out what Rita and Sergei are up to - basically white slavery - she cannot stay out of it, and starts looking out for other people, even when it puts her in danger.

Even at 65 minutes, She Done Him Wrong has a meandering quality, and is not overburdened with plot, until the last fifteen minutes, which is suddenly super-plotty, but manages not to wrap it all up anyway. But none of that matters, because it's all about Mae, sparkling like a diamond. What an icon.

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog