After a supporting role in the George Raft film Night After Night, Paramount films realized what a gold mine they had in Mae West. Between her and a young radio singer named Bing Crosby, they pulled Paramount from the brink of bankruptcy, the white mountain studio nearly went under in the early Thirties.

After this the studio gave Mae her head in choosing material and she decided to use one of her own original plays, She Done Him Wrong. The story is set in the Bowery district of the 1890s and New York of the 1890s is where Mae grew up, she had a good ear and a good memory for character types she uses in the film.

Mae always plays Mae West and would you really want her as anyone else? She's a Bowery entertainer of the period, working in this case for Noah Beery's club as the main attraction. Beery's into some really shady business, he doubles in white slavery and nearly gets innocent Rochelle Hudson who tries to kill herself in his club. Mae saves her, but turns her over to Beery because she doesn't know about his other sideline. All she knows is that he pays off in diamonds as well as cash.

Besides Beery panting after her, we've got silent screen star Owen Moore, young Gilbert Roland who is the assistant to white slaver Rafaela Ottiana and in the film that would be his breakthrough, Cary Grant as a Salvation Army worker who's not all he seems. Mae personally picked Grant for his role, he was a young Paramount contract player beginning to get some notice. But as I said before in my review of I'm No Angel, this is not a Cary Grant film, this is a Mae West film.

Mae besides being one of the great sex symbols of the last century had a great memory and eye for detail of the bawdy Bowery of her youth. Good thing she came along before The Code was put in place. Her first films are her best, The Code definitely hampered her style.

And Mae West if she had anything, had style.

WOW, does this film age poorly. Back in the 30s, Mae West was quite popular and this movie, believe it or not, was up for Best Picture. Now, most viewers will doubtless ask themselves "what is all the fuss about--WHY was this film so popular?". After all, by today's standards it's a very dull and contrived movie--not nearly as interesting as Paramount's other comedians, WC Fields and The Marx Brothers. And, for a comedy, it's almost completely devoid of humor. For me, seeing the trampy looking West vamping every man in the film is ludicrous, as she just looks gross and unattractive. This is even more apparent when she woos a very young and handsome Cary Grant. This is about as believable as the bride of Frankenstein winning Grant's hand! All in all, a very contrived movie and not a whole lot different than most of West's other films. In fact, this movie is pretty much I'M NO ANGEL (1933 AS WELL) all over again (complete with, once again, a drooling Cary Grant as her main heartthrob).

Mae West is another one of those actresses that played the same role time after time. She played Mae West. What distinguishes the movies are the lines and she was a masterful created of double entendre with a big load of sex. She would surround herself with the actors of the day, like Gilbert Roland and Wallace Beery. The one that benefited the most here was Cary Grant. It's hard to realize that he goes back so far. I have to admit that for mot of my life I found West's thing to be off handed and tiresome. But now I know that she had great timing and and interesting stage presence. She could deliver a "dirty" line like no other. This gave us the famous like, "Come up and see me sometime."