Customer Reviews
When you've got nothing to do and lots of time to do it, come up. - By: Lanyon, 04 Feb 2007 
Here are two great films that helped to make Mae West the highest paid female Hollywood star of the 1930s. Her films were brash, sexy & witty (in Mae West films "sex reared its funny head"). Mae was the only female star who never suffered at the hands of fate & always got her man, or usuallly men. This good value DVD set includes her first starring film "She Done Him Wrong" (1933) & her most well known one "My Little Chickadee" (1939) with W C Fields.
She Done Him Wrong was a remake of her stage play "Diamond Lil" set in the Bowery in New York during the 1890s (the Gay Nineties). Because the play had attracted the attention of the censors, for the film they renamed Mae's character Lady Lou ("One of the finest women who ever walked the streets"). It was the biggest grossing film of 1933 and, alllegedly, saved Paramount Pictures from going into bankruptcy. Her request to co-star Cary Grant ("come up & see me sometime") became her catchphrase & there were other great Mae lines; "when women go wrong, men go right after them", "there was a time when I didn't know where my next husband was coming from", "I didn't know whether to give up diamonds or sing in the choir - the choir lost". At one point Cary Grant asks her "Have you never found a man that could make you happy?" to which Mae replies "Sure - lots of times". Until now Cary Grant had yet to appear in a movie that was a hit - this one made him a star.
After a run of successful films for Paramount (two of which "I'm No Angel" & "Klondike Annie" are also available in a double DVD set) Mae was approached by Universal to co-star with W C Fields in a comedy western callled "My Little Chickadee". It's a strange combination & the two stars are muted in their scenes together but when left to do their own thing separately the film is very amusing. Mae wrote more memorable lines for herself "I can see you are a man of principles, I'd better go while you've still got them", "every man I meet wants to protect me, I can't figure out what from". In a courtroom scene the judge asks Mae "Are you trying to show contempt for this Court" to which Mae replies "No, I'm doing my best to hide it".
Give yourself a treat & go up & see her sometime.
