Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Mae West: Love Shivers

"Making Love to MAE WEST Is Like a Football Game" was the hilarious headline on the cover of Motion Picture's entertaining issue for September 1934.  The first-person piece was attributed to her handsome co-star Johnny Mack Brown ("as told to" reporter Jack Smalley).   Romantic scenes in "Belle of the Nineties" would have to be re-shot, the actor confessed to his fans, with the censors calling the shots as the studio acted as the referee.
• • And John ought to know.  He got plenty of thrills as an All-American halfback at Alabama — — and he plays opposite Mae in her new picture, "That St. Louis Woman" [one more title that was nixed].
• • Moviegoers the world over have tried to find words to describe Mae West. John Mack Brown, once a football star at Alabama, finds a vivid way of describing her by talking football language. But don't take this story too seriously. It's all done in a spirit of good, clean fun — — Editor.
• • Take it from John Mack Brown, making love to Mae West is like playing football. But the most exciting game of his college career had no thrill like receiving one pass from Mae. You can talk about the tingle of a touchdown; but he would rather be thrown for a loss by West, any day of the week. That's what it feels like to make love to the glamourous gal who made herself the most spontaneous sensation in movie history.
• • John ought to know what he's talking about when he compares thrills, for he's the famous All-American halfback who won the Southern Conference championship for Alabama with a play that sent fifty-thousand onlookers into tremors of excitement. Now he has just finished making love to Mae in his best tackle form in "That St. Louis Woman" (formerly "It Ain't No Sin").
• • "It's a tingle that goes up your spine and down again, for all the world like the moment you're crouched on the one-yard line, waiting for the ball to be snapped," Brown said, searching for a way to explain Mae's effect on the blood pressure of a healthy male specimen like himself.
• • And Johnny Mack Brown is glad Mae West didn't keep him warming a bench on the side-lines.
• • "And after finishing a scene with her, you feel as if you had made a touchdown against the entire field. The only difference is that you have no kick coming! After a couple of hours in a huddle before the camera with Mae West, there have been so many little shivers of excitement romping over the gridiron of your emotions that you feel positively limp!"
• • "You should have been penalized for holding," I told him.   . . .
• • This has been Part 1 of an extraordinarily lengthy magazine article.
• • Source: Motion Picture; published in the issue dated for September 1934.
• • On Tuesday, 29 September 1914 • •
• • The newspaper Philadelphia North American reviewed the more prominent variety artists who were performing onstage in the City of Brotherly Love on Tuesday, 29 September 1914. The arts critic thought well of Mae, who was then calling herself "The Original Brinkley Girl." When he referred to her stage act, he called her a "nut comedienne."
• • On Friday, 29 September 1933 • •
• • It was on Friday, 29 September 1933 that Mae West signed the Release Dialogue Script form for her very successful motion picture project "I'm No Angel" for Paramount Pictures. Mae West was paid for the film's treatment, story, and screenplay.
• • Julien's Auctions sold this autographed Release to a fan for $128.00.
• • On Tuesday, 29 September 1936 • •
• • "Go West Young Man" starring Mae West (as the man-eating movie marquee marvel Mavis Arden) was released in the USA on 18 November 1936.
• • The production began in early August at General Service Studios and was all wrapped up on Tuesday, 29 September 1936.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Why does Mae West shift her weight from one foot to another? Why does Lionel Barrymore use his hands in that peculiar, blind, batty fashion? Why does Greta Garbo pace up and down, up and down, while the cameras are being made ready?
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said:  "Look, I haven't got a bookkeeper's mind. I can't remember what I paid for those things five or six years ago."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A book published by University of Chicago Press mentioned Mae West.
• • Dennis Chong wrote:   . . . how popular sensibilities have changed. For example, William Manchester recounts how moviegoers in the Depression Era, watching a Mae West film, Night after Night, "gasped" when "in reply to a friend's remark [sic], 'Goodness, what beautiful diamonds,' Mae replied, 'Goodness had nothing to do with it.'" . . .
• • Source: Noted in the book "Rational Lives: Norms and Values in Politics and Society" written by Dennis Chong; published in April 2000
• • Note: Mae used this bit on Patricia Farley, the fillm's coatcheck counter gal (who was made up to look like a dark-skinned woman), not a friend. It's interesting how no one remembers that this was one of Texas Guinan's lines.
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 11th anniversary • •    
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past eleven years. The other day we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 3,200 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3277th blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Mae West • in 1932

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