Programmed December 2020
The Best of Mae West
Queen of the risqué double entendre Mae West said it best herself: “When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.” The singular performer, playwright, sex symbol, and all-around star had brass and brilliance to burn in her ascent from vaudeville vamp to scandal-inciting Broadway sensation to Hollywood’s biggest box-office draw of the early 1930s, when she kept censors on their toes with her bawdy one-liners and liberated approach to sexuality in pre-Code jaw-droppers like She Done Him Wrong (the success of which almost singlehandedly saved Paramount from bankruptcy) and I’m No Angel . An icon of emancipated womanhood, West always more than held her own in a man’s world, both on- and off-screen—she wrote or cowrote every screenplay featured here. Added on Sunday, 6 December 2020
8 films
No longer streaming
