NEW FILM VOGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 17, 20 January 1934, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEW FILM VOGUE.

COMING OF MAE WEST.

HOW SHE ROSE TO STARDOM,

Reading a statement to the effect that '.'She Done Him Wrong" was Mae West's second film, a correspondent asks details of her first.

It was "Night After Night," a night club drama, featuring George Raft, Alison Skipworth and Constance Cummings, in which Mae had a small role as a beauty shop owner who "blows" into a speakeasy and unlosses wisecracks. It was just a "bit," but the dialogue, rewritten by herself at her urgent request, stood out. A sample: "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds 1" exclaims a cloakroom girl. "Goodness has nothing to do with it, dearie," responds Miss West.

Her studio heard so much about Mae West after that picture—it played 5500 return engagements, and all because of her—that, with Mae, of course, persistently jogging their various elbows, the powers that were decided to let her write and star in a play of her own. That play was "She Done Him Wrong." With its amazing success in the United States and France, the studio placed behind her name the resources available to Cecil B. de Mille such giants of Cinemaland, with similar emoluments, plus Mae's shrewdly-requested percentage of takings. She thereupon, just as in "She Done Him Wrong," wrote, directed and starred in a new film, "I'm No Angel," which was released in America some weeks ago. She is at present making "It Ain't No Sin" along similar lines. "I'm No Angel" is due for its Auckland release.

An American critic remarked somewhat unkindly, but none the less veraciously, of the Mae West vogue: "Again a courtesan has revolutionised a country!"