She Done Him Wrong (1933) Pages: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) Background She Done Him Wrong (1933), from director Lowell Sherman, is Mae West's star-making, most famous film role as a liberated, racy woman who enjoys her sexuality - as a character named Lady 'Diamond' Lou. The Naughty/Gay Nineties character was a recreation of her 1928 Diamond Lil Broadway stage play (and its bejeweled title character). Credits for its screenplay are given to Harvey Thew, John Bright and Mae West herself. The box-office smash film for Paramount Pictures, given a different title than Diamond Lil to disassociate itself from the toured, scandalous play during part of 1929, was shot in approximately three weeks (including rehearsal time). Its single Academy Award nomination was for Best Picture, but it lost to Cavalcade.

(It was the only Mae West film ever to be nominated.) The famous film, featuring West's first starring role (she had appeared in a supporting cameo role in Night After Night (1932) with George Raft), is filled with lots of clever innuendo, witty one-liners, and bold carnality, as she spouts irreverent one-liners (the oft-misquoted 'Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me?'), seduces a unspecified mission worker/undercover cop (Cary Grant), and sings bawdy songs (including Frankie and Johnny, I Like A Guy What Takes His Time, and Easy Rider). It has been generally claimed that this film and West's other 1933 picture, I'm No Angel (1933) , both helped to spur the coming of stricter enforcement by the Hays Production Code one year later, and the development of the Catholic Legion of Decency. The film's criminal subplot about white slavery and counterfeiting was confusing due to the Hays Office's demands to rid the film of references to white slavery, although odd fragments remain.

The tagline of one of the film's posters confirmed the film's dangerous sentiment: "Mae West gives a 'HOT TIME' to the Nation." The Story A title card describes the Gay Nineties and the turn-of-the-century setting of New York City's Bowery: When they did such things and they said such things on the Bowery. A lusty, brawling, florid decade when there were handlebars on lip and wheel - and legs were confidential! Bejeweled chanteuse and brash entertainer Lady Lou (Mae West) works in the 1890s Bowery bar-room saloon of her boss and benefactor Gus Jordan (Noah Beery, Sr.), who has given her many diamonds (hence her nickname Diamond Lil). There is a large nude painting of her over the bar. Unbeknownst to her, Gus traffics in white slavery (prostitution) and runs a counterfeiting ring (to help finance Lou's expensive diamonds). He also sends young women to San Francisco to be pickpockets.

Gus works with two other crooked entertainer-assistants, Russian Rita (Rafaela Ottiano) and Rita's lover, the suave Serge Stanieff (Gilbert Roland). A city mission (a thinly-disguised Salvation Army) is located next door to the bar. Its young missionary director, Captain Cummings (Cary Grant) is, in reality, an undercover agent working to infiltrate and expose the illegal activities in the bar. Gus is unaware, only worried that Captain Cummings will reform the place and scare away the bar's customers. Lady Lou first appears riding in her carriage with a parasol, encouraging nasty looks from a group of women. She descends and affectionately pats a child's head. His mother remarks what a fine gal and woman she is. Lou announces herself as ...one of the finest women who ever walked the streets. When introduced to Lady Lou, male admirer Serge kisses her hand gallantly: "I am delighted. I have heard so much about you." She answers: "Yeah, but you can't prove it." She shows the group a recent set of pictures she has had taken with her "rocks." One of them she prefaces by describing: "For the bedroom.

A little bit spicy, but not too raw - you know what I mean?" Upstairs, her black maid Pearl (Louise Beavers) is impressed by her riches: "You're so rich." Lou explains: "Yes. I wasn't always rich. No, there was a time I didn't know where my next husband was coming from." Lady Lou admits she has known harder times: "The wolf at my door? Why, I remember when he came right into my room and had pups!" One day in the Jordan's barroom, a depressed young girl named Sally Glynn (Rochelle Hudson) enters with torn clothes. In silhouette, she attempts suicide but is prevented, and brought to Lou's upstairs room to recover. Lou perceptively knows it is a romantic problem with a man. Sally wonders how she knows a man is involved. Lou replies: You know, it takes two to get one in trouble. Lou asks: "What was he? Married?" Sally replies: "Yes, but I didn't know." Lou offers more advice: Men's all alike - married or single. It's their game. I happen to be smart enough to play it their way. You'll come to it.

Lou suggests that Sally get some new clothes, and continues to encourage her: "Always remember to smile. You'll never have anything to worry about. Forget about this guy. See that you get a good one the next time." Sally is convinced that no one will ever want her after what she's done ("Who'd want me after what I've done?"). Lou replies, with a famous line: Listen, when women go wrong, men go right after them. Lou explains to Gus, Serge and Rita what the commotion was about: "Some guy done her wrong. The story's so old it should have been set to music long ago." Rita is interested in the innocent but wronged girl, thinking she might be useful to them (possibly as part of their corrupt racket as a prostitute on the "Barbary Coast"): What a sweet, innocent face?...Can you sing and dance, perhaps?...Well, but you'd be willing to learn...Then I think I can find you a very nice position. Have you heard perhaps of the Barbary Coast? Gus and Rita tell Lou that they will help the girl, but obviously they have their own intentions.

As Serge leaves, Lou delivers a suggestive double-entendre line to him: Lou: Come up again, anytime. Serge: I shall. And I hope you will be alone. Lou: So do I. (He graciously kisses her extended hand) Warm, dark, and handsome. Lou postpones her activities if there are more important things to attend to, mostly male admirers. Pearl announces: "Your bath is ready, Miss Lou." Lady Lou replies: "You take it. I'm indisposed." Pearl and Lou have both noticed the man from the mission, Captain Cummings. Her maid notes that he is different from other admirers: "He ain't like the other men you done made history of." Lou has forgotten former boyfriend Chick Clark (Owen Moore) who was convicted for robbery and went to prison for trying to steal diamonds for her. She is more attracted to the young handsome, psalm-singing Captain Cummings. Lou meets him and compliments him: Lou (seductively): I always did like a man in a uniform. That one fits you grand. Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me? I'm home every evenin'. Captain: Yeah, but I'm busy every evening.

Lou: Busy? So, what are you tryin' to do, insult me? Captain: Why no, no, not at all. I'm just busy, that's all... Lou: You ain't kiddin' me any. You know, I met your kind before. Why don't you come up sometime, huh? Captain: Well, I... Greatest Film Misquotes Greatest Film Misquotes Greatest Movie Misquotes (Part 1) Greatest Movie Mis-Quotes: Some of the most classic film lines or scenes are really only legendary and/or apocryphal, or they are merely movie misquotes, but after many years of repetition and being misquoted in subsequent films, they have become part of the filmgoing public's consciousness. Many of these examples are film quotes that were either commonly attributed wrongly, or in fact were never actually spoken. The top 10 most misquoted film lines are marked with an icon In The Virginian (1929) , one of the earliest Western talkies, Gary Cooper (as the Virginian) gave a famous taunting line to bad guy Trampas (Walter Huston) at the saloon's bar.

At the start of the heated exchange, Trampas challenged the Virginian: Trampas (Walter Huston): "When I wanna know anything from you, I'll tell ya, you long-legged son of a ..." Virginian: (Gary Cooper): "If you wanna call me that, smile." (He quick-drew his gun pressed against Trampas' abdomen) Trampas: (long pause, then grinning) "With a gun against my belly I... I always smile." Play clip from The Virginian (1929) : It was not: "Smile when you call me that!", "Smile when you say that," or "When ya call me that, smile!" Note however that Owen Wister's 1902 Western novel The Virginian actually used the phrase: "When ya call me that, smile!" A second version of the novel was filmed 17 years later, also titled The Virginian (1946), starring Joel McCrea as the title character.

In the remake, the Virginian used the same "smile" line as in the novel when he confronted Trampas at a card table for lying: Virginian (Joel McCrea): "When you call me that, smile!" Trampas (Brian Donlevy): "With a gun against my belly, I always smile." Play clip from The Virginian (1946): In the Marx Brothers comedy film Animal Crackers (1930) , Groucho Marx (as African jungle explorer Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding) delivered the following line: "One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know." Play clip from Animal Crackers (1930) : It has often been misquoted as: "...How he got in my pajamas I'll never know." In the Universal horror classic, Dracula (1931) , the legendary blood-sucking Count Dracula (Hungarian-born actor Bela Lugosi) never said: "I want to suck your blood." However, the line was spoken in director Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994). It was used in a humorous context by Dr.

Tom Mason (Ned Bellamy) practicing his Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) impersonation: "I want to suck your blood." Play clip from Ed Wood (1994): Often misquoted is Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) - yes, Frankenstein was the name of the mad scientist - and his famous shout in Frankenstein (1931) , with the stirring of life within his non-human Monster (Boris Karloff): "It's alive!" Play clip from Frankenstein (1931) : Frankenstein has often been quoted as saying instead: "He's alive! Alive!" Mel Brooks' irreverent spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) featured grandson Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) resuming his late grandfather's experiments, and his loud exclamation to bug-eyed Igor (Marty Feldman) and voluptuous lab assistant Inga (Teri Garr): "Alive. It's alive!

IT'S ALIVE!" Play clip from Young Frankenstein (1974) : The mobster refrain: "You dirty rat!" - was never said verbatim by James Cagney, although he did say something similar in two films: Blonde Crazy (1931) (aka Larceny Lane): "Oh, that dirty, double-crossin' rat. I'd like to get my own hooks on him. I'd tear him to pieces." Play clip from Blonde Crazy (1931): Taxi! (1932): "Come out and take it, ya dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I'll give it to ya through the door!" Play clip from Taxi! (1932): It was misquoted in Cole Porter's Broadway stage classic Anything Goes (1934). It was also misquoted in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) when Michelangelo imitated James Cagney: "You dirty rat. You killed my brudda.

You dirty rat." Play clip from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990): [In Home Alone (1990), Macauley Culkin watched a scene from a fictional B/W gangster film videotape titled, "Angels With Filthy Souls" (a take-off on the Cagney film Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) ), in which gangster Johnny shoots a rival gangster named Snakes, while saying, "Keep the change, ya filthy animal!"] Greta Garbo's most famous quote of all prominently appeared, with her famous accent spoken by the character Grusinskaya, in Grand Hotel (1932) : "I want to be alone." Play clip from Grand Hotel (1932) : Garbo also stated a similar line, including her partner-lover Leon (Melvyn Douglas) in her solitude, in Ninotchka (1939) : "We want to be alone." Play clip from Ninotchka (1939) : It has often thought that statements about Garbo wanting to be alone were non-existent or merely a comment on her reclusive nature in private life.

"Me Tarzan, you Jane" - was a catch-phrase inaccurately-quoted from Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) . In a 1932 interview, Johnny Weissmuller (as Tarzan) actually claimed: "I didn't have to act in Tarzan, the Ape Man, just said: 'Me Tarzan, You Jane." Jane: "Thank you. Thank you for protecting me." Tarzan: "Me?" Jane: (repeating herself, and pointing to herself to teach him his mistake) "I said: 'Thank you for protecting me.'" Tarzan: (poking at Jane) "Me?" Jane: "No." (she points to herself) "I'm only 'Me' for me." Tarzan: (wrongly again poking at Jane) "Me." Jane: (correcting him and pointing at him) "No. To you, I'm 'You'." Tarzan: (wrongly pointing at himself) "You." Jane: "No. I'm Jane Parker. Understand? Jane. Jane." Tarzan: (pointing at her) "Jane...Jane. Jane." Jane: "Yes, Jane.

(she points at him) And you? (she points at herself and gives her own name) Jane." Tarzan: (he points at her) "Jane." Jane: "And you? (she points at him) You?" Tarzan: (stabbing himself proudly in the chest) "Tarzan, Tarzan." Jane: (emphasizing his correct response) "Tarzan!" Tarzan: (pointing excitedly toward her and back to himself) "Jane. Tarzan." (then more rapidly, poking at her each time he repeats her name, going faster and faster) "Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane..." Jane: (exasperated) "Oh, please stop! Let me go! I can't bear this!..." In the short two-reel W.C. Fields comedy The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933), the comedian often stated the following line (with the famous gag of a handful of fake snow being thrown in his face from an opened cabin door).

"And it ain't a fit night out for man or beast." Play clip from The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933): Later, W.C. Fields would reprise the gag during the "play-within-the-play" in The Old-Fashioned Way (1934). "It ain't a fit night out for man or beast." Play clip from The Old Fashioned Way (1934): The phrase became popularized as an easy way to describe awful weather.

It has often been misquoted as: "And it ain't a fit night out for man nor beast." "You're going out (there) a youngster, but you're coming back a star!", "You're going out (on that stage) a nobody, (kid), but you're coming back a star!", or "You're going out a chorus girl, but you're coming back a star!" - all misquotes of the original line in 42nd Street (1933) : "But you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out, and, Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" Play clip from 42nd Street (1933) : The following line, a classic double entendre, was not spoken by Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933) : "Is that a gun [or pistol] in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" She did restate the line in her final film, an outrageous comedy titled Sextette (1978). As aging movie-star Marlo Manners, she was speaking to Vance Morton (co-star George Hamilton).

Reportedly, she also spoke the line to an escorting LA police officer who met her at the LA railway station in February, 1936. Note: The line was parodied in at least three other films: In Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974), Madeline Kahn as Lili Von Schtupp quipped: "Is that a ten gallon hat, or are you just enjoying the show?" Play clip from Blazing Saddles (1974) : In Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) , Dolores (Joanna Cassidy) asked Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) - with Roger Rabbit concealed in his pants pocket: "Is that a rabbit in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Play clip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) : And in the romantic comedy America's Sweethearts (2001), in a revenge fantasy sequence, the line was parodied in a scene between two movie stars who were at odds with each other after a break-up: Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones): "Oh, Eddie, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

I know you'll never forgive me, but please, please take me back. Oh... you've got a gun in your pocket or just happy to see me?" Eddie Thomas (John Cusack): "Actually, it's a gun." (Bang, bang, bang...) Play clip from America's Sweethearts (2001): Bawdy actress Mae West has often been misquoted, especially with this mis-stated line: "Why, don't you come up and see me sometime, (big boy)?" or "Come up and see me sometime." In fact, the line was stated differently in the 1933 film She Done Him Wrong (1933) . Mae West (as Lady Lou) propositioned her co-star Cary Grant (as Captain Cummings) thusly: Lady Lou: "I always did like a man in a uniform. That one fits you grand. Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me? I'm home every evenin'." Captain: "Yeah, but I'm busy every evening." Lou: "Busy? So, what are you tryin' to do, insult me?" Captain: "Why no, no, not at all.

I'm just busy, that's all..." Lou: "I heard ya, but you ain't kiddin' me any. You know, I met your kind before. Why don't you come up sometime, huh?" Captain: "Well, I..." Later in the film, she again offered her services to Captain Cummings, with a modified invitation: Lou: "Come up again, anytime." Captain: "Thanks, I will." Play clip from She Done Him Wrong (1933) : (variation) Much earlier in the film, she had already invited suave Serge Stanieff (Gilbert Roland) with the same words: Lou: "Come up again, anytime." Serge: "I shall. And I hope you will be alone." Lou: "So do I.

(He graciously kissed her extended hand) Warm, dark, and handsome." Play clip from She Done Him Wrong (1933) : (variation) Toward the end of another Mae West film in the same year, I'm No Angel (1933) , the actress (as lion tamer Tira) also thanked (on the telephone) Juror # 4 for her acquittal and some "beautiful flowers," with her own, self-referential oft-misquoted line: "And don't forget. Come up and see me sometime." In the Laurel and Hardy classic comedy, Sons of the Desert (1933) , Oliver Hardy exclaimed to partner Stan Laurel: "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" Play clip from Sons of the Desert (1933) : He did NOT say: "Well, here's another fine mess you've gotten us into" or "Here's another fine mess you've gotten me into." At the conclusion of the classic adventure film King Kong (1933) , Robert Armstrong (as Carl Denham) uttered the famous closing line: "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes.

It was Beauty killed the Beast." Play clip from King Kong (1933) : Some have heard it to say: "...'Twas Beauty killed the Beast," although there's little doubt. In The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) , Douglass Dumbrille (as treacherous and sinister Mohammed Khan) said as a taunting threat to Bengal Lancers. In his delivery, he paused after "Well, gentlemen" to give a smile and then a scowl: "Well, gentlemen. We have ways to make men talk." Play clip from The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) : He did NOT say: "We have ways of making you talk," "We have ways of making men talk," or "We have ways to make you (men) talk." The movie was reportedly Adolph Hitler's favorite. The torture method to get them to talk involved sharp slivers of bamboo inserted under fingernails that were set on fire. At the end of the film Poppy (1936), conniving patent-medicine salesman Prof. Eustace P. McGargle (W.C.

Fields) bid farewell to heiress Poppy (Rochelle Hudson), who always thought he was her father. He told her: "That's marvelous. And if we should ever separate, my little plum, I want to give you one little bit of fatherly advice." - "Yes, Pop." - "Never give a sucker an even break." The proverb meant that one should not give a fair chance to a fool (or one easily deceived). It became the title of Fields' later film: Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) . It has been misquoted, often written as: "And remember, Dearie, never give a sucker an even break." In Disney's animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) , the wicked Queen asked her Magic Mirror: "Magic Mirror on the Wall, who is the Fairest one of all?" The misquote (such as: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?") has been heard in a number of films, including: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) "Mirror, mirror on the wall.

Who's the most drop-dead gorgeous one of all?" Play clip from Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988): 101 Dalmatians (1996) Play clip from Shrek (2001) : "Come with me to the Casbah," followed by "we'll make beautiful music together" - was never said by Charles Boyer to co-star Hedy Lamarr in Algiers (1938). Boyer claimed it was invented by his press agent. It was voiced by cartoon character Pepe LePew in subsequent Looney Tunes cartoons, among others. In fact, animator Chuck Jones based the Warner Brothers cartoon character Pepe LePew, a French skunk, on Charles Boyer's Pepe Le Moko. "You do not have to come with me to the Casbah." Play clip from cartoon "For Scent-imental Reasons" (1949): "Elementary, my dear Watson!" - was a phrase never spoken by the lead character in the many Sherlock Holmes novels from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This mis-quote was found in a film review in the New York Times on October 19, 1929.

The closest phrases in Doyle's writings were in: The Crooked Man ("'Excellent!' I cried. 'Elementary!', said he.") The Adventure of the Cardboard Box ("It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you"). The misquoted catchphrase became popularized only after its trademark use in two films: (1) This was the dialogue in The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929) (the first Holmes film with sound), with Clive Brook (as Holmes) and H. Reeves-Smith (as Dr. Watson). Watson: "Amazing, Holmes." Holmes: "Elementary, my dear Watson. Elementary." (2) It was also stated twice by Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes character in Twentieth Century Fox's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939). Watson: "Amazing." Screen Junkies Mae West Quotes something here Mae West quotes are as famous as the blonde bombshell actress herself. Born in New York on August 17, 1893, she lived to the advanced age of 87 before she passed away on November 22, 1980 in California .

Mae West was a sex symbol who enjoyed and showed off her sexuality , and her one-liner often-raunchy innuendo quotes have survived to this day. Some were from her main movies, "I'm No Angel" with Cary Grant and "She Done Him Wrong", both released in 1933, which made her the nation's hottest box office attraction and saved Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy. Before those two movies she had a supporting role in the 1932 "Night After Night" where she appeared with George Raft. These quotes are from "I'm No Angel": "Come up and see me sometime": Mae repeated this with slight variations a number of times in "I'm No Angel". She played a circus performer who became a socialite. "What, only one?": What Mae replied when a fortuneteller said, ""Ah, you have a wonderful future. I see a man in your life." Mae was known to have a variety of men in her life, both on screen and off. "When I'm good I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better": Mae's satire was so outrageous that her films resulted in a strict Hollywood production code.

These quotes are from "She Done Him Wrong": "One of the finest women who ever walked the streets": This is how Mae, as entertainer Lady Lou, introduced herself . "You know, it takes two to get one in trouble": What Mae said to a depressed young girl with a romantic problem. "I always did like a man in a uniform": What Mae said to Cary Grant, who played Captain Cummings, a supposed missionary director who was really an undercover agent trying to expose the illegal activities going on in the saloon where Lady Lou (Mae) worked. "Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me? I'm home every evening": This is another version of Mae's famous line, this time said to Captain Cummings. "Listen, when women go wrong, men go right after them": Lady Lou (Mae) giving advice to a young woman who had troubles. "Come up again, anytime": Lady Lou (Mae) to her lover Serge, played by Gilbert Roland. Serge replied, "I shall. And I hope you will be alone." Lady Lou then said, "So do I.

Warm, dark, and handsome." -Jacklyn Barlow "The Interview" Joins the Ranks of These Banned or Restricted Movies | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Contact Privacy Policy Terms of Use "The Interview" Joins the Ranks of These Banned or Restricted Movies From a Charlie Chaplin comedy to a Mae West melodrama, plenty of controversial films have been pulled or even destroyed since the dawn of cinema James Franco and Seth Rogen are just the latest actors to draw ire from political leaders. (Richard Levine/Demotix/Corbis) smithsonian.com December 23, 2014 A Hollywood comedy lampoons a foreign dictator. That dictator gets peeved. A major studio has second thoughts about releasing the film to a wide audience. This scenario might make The Interview , North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Sony Pictures come to mind. But in the best of Hollywood traditions, the recent ruckus over the Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy is little more than a remake. Related Content Korea Is Using a Kinect to Monitor Its Border Past films have taken tyrants to task, and other studios have pulled the plug on productions for apparently political considerations.

The Interview is just the latest in a long list of films that have had their public availability limited thanks to dissed despots or scissor-mad censors. Here are 10 previous films, both famous and obscure, that have been banned or drastically censored over the course of cinema history: The Great Dictator (1940) Charlie Chaplin’s comic turn as Adenoid Hynkel, a tyrant with an unmistakable resemblance to Adolph Hitler, may be the most famous film ever to poke fun at a foreign head of state. It also performed a similar service for the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, parodied as Benzino Napaloni by the actor Jack Oakie. Not surprisingly, the film was banned in Germany (where Chaplin’s films were already verboten), as well as in Japan, Spain, Peru and Argentina. It was also banned in Chicago, reportedly due to fear of antagonizing the city’s German-American population. It Can’t Happen Here (1936) This movie was based on Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 bestseller about a fascist takeover of the United States. Or it would have been.

Production was already underway when MGM, which had bought the rights, decided to shelve the project, allegedly not wanting to anger fascist governments overseas. As the frustrated Lewis put it in a statement to The New York Times, “I wrote ‘It Can’t Happen Here,’ but I begin to think it certainly can.” A still from All Quiet on the Western Front shows how the movie captured the grim realities of war. (John Springer Collection/CORBIS) All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Based on the Erich Maria Remarque novel about German soldiers in the First World War , All Quiet won the Academy Award for Outstanding Production, the equivalent of today’s Best Picture nod. But its anti-war message did not sit well with the Nazi party in Germany, which not only picketed outside theaters but also released stink bombs and mice (some sources say rats) inside them. Shortly thereafter the film was banned in Germany. At various times it was also banned in Austria, Poland, Italy, France and Australia, largely because of its unromanticized depiction of war.

The Day the Clown Cried (1972) This unreleased, possibly unfinished and much-discussed film stars Jerry Lewis as a circus clown imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. The movie’s critics, few of whom have actually seen a copy, have depicted it as tasteless, maudlin or simply bad. Even Lewis, who also directed and helped finance the film, has said that watching it made him feel “embarrassed” and “ashamed” and that he was grateful he had the power to make sure no one else ever saw it—a rare instance of a film banned by its own creator. Frankenstein (1931) The all-time horror classic may have spent more time on censors’ cutting blocks than its monster did on Dr. Frankenstein’s operating table, for fear that audiences would find it too shocking. It was edited in many parts of the United States and banned outright in Czechoslovakia, Italy, Northern Ireland and Sweden, according to the American Film Institute . Its 1935 sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, was reportedly banned in Hungary, Palestine and Trinidad, not to mention the state of Ohio.

Despite the outcry, both husband and wife are now on the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry for “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” films. The shadow of Count Orlok, seen in a still from the movie. (Courtesy of Flickr user Insomnia Cured Here ) Nosferatu (1922) This silent and still-spooky interpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula , by the German director F. W. Murnau, was spiked soon after its first release because Murnau had failed to secure the rights to the book. Though he changed Dracula’s name to Orlok and moved much of the mayhem from England to Germany, Stoker’s widow sued, and a judge ordered the movie destroyed. Like the bloodthirsty count, however, Nosferatu proved difficult to kill. At least one copy survived, and in later years the film returned to movie screens and became an acknowledged classic. Little Caesar (1930) The pioneering gangster flick, with Edward G. Robinson as an Al Capone-like hoodlum named Rico, was censored across the United States and banned in Australia and parts of Canada.

Though Rico gets his comeuppance at the end of the film in a blaze of machine-gun fire, censors apparently thought it glamorized the gangster lifestyle, a charge that has been leveled against movies in this genre ever since. We the Living (1942) This Italian version of Ayn Rand’s 1936 novel about life in Soviet Russia was banned and ordered destroyed by the Mussolini government. Although it was ostensibly about communism, its dim view of totalitarian regimes apparently hit too close to home. A producer managed to hide the film negatives, which resurfaced years later. According to the biography Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller, Rand later received $35,000 in compensation for the unauthorized use of her work, a portion of which she used to buy a mink coat. It was finally released in the U.S. in the 1980s. Mae West was perhaps a bit too sultry for 1930s sensibilities. (John Springer Collection/CORBIS) She Done Him Wrong (1933) Mae West was no stranger to censorship when she began her movie career.

She had even been jailed for 10 days on obscenity charges for her role in a stage play, the unambiguously titled Sex. So she probably wasn’t surprised when this film was banned in Australia, Austria and Finland and hacked to pieces by censors across the United States for its sly sexuality and double entendres. Even so, it made a star of the young male lead, Cary Grant, and an even bigger one of West. It also provided what may be her most famous and often misquoted line of dialog: “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” Prizefighting Films (1910 to 1940) Here's a rare case of an entire category of films being banned. In 1910, the African-American boxer Jack Johnson clobbered his white opponent, Jim Jeffries, in a fight for the heavyweight title. Apparently upset by that outcome, states and cities across the U.S. began banning films of live boxing matches. Two years later, the U.S. Congress entered the ring, making the interstate transportation of boxing films illegal. Though enforced only sporadically in later years, the law wasn’t repealed until 1940. Like this article?

Mae West - Biography - IMDb Biography Showing all 112 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (2) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (5) | Trivia (48) | Personal Quotes (46) | Salary (5) Overview (5) 5' (1.52 m) Mini Bio (2) Mae West was born in Queens, New York, to "Battling Jack" West and Matilda Doelger. She began her career as a child star in vaudeville, and later went on to write her own plays, including "SEX", for which she was arrested. Though her first movie role was a small part in Night After Night (1932), her scene has become famous. A coat check girl exclaims, "Goodness! What lovely diamonds!", after seeing Mae's jewelry. Mae replies, "Goodness had nothing to do with it". Her next film, in which she starred, came the following year. She Done Him Wrong (1933) was based on her earlier and very popular play, "Diamond Lil".

She went on to write and star in seven more films, including My Little Chickadee (1940) with W.C. Fields . Her last movie was Sextette (1978), which also came from a play. She died two years later. Rampant double entendres. Trivia (48) Hollywood's outrageous, self-proclaimed psychic Criswell predicted in 1955 that she would win the 1960 Presidential election, and would fly to the moon in 1965 with him and friend Liberace !. After two years of denying that she had ever been married, West admitted in a reply to a legal interrogatory in 1937 that she and Frank Wallace had married in 1911. During her divorce trial in 1942, she testified that they had lived together only "several weeks". According to actor Tony Curtis , her famous walk originated while beginning her career as a stage actress. Special six-inch platforms were attached to her shoes to increase the height of her stage presence.

Her walk literally was "one foot at a time." During World War II, United States Navy and Army pilots and crewmen in the Pacific named their inflatable life vests after her, supposedly because of her well-endowed attributes. The term "Mae West" for a lifejacket continues to this day. She was with George Raft in both her first ( Night After Night (1932)) and last ( Sextette (1978)) film. Appears on sleeve of The Beatles "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". West at first declined to be pictured on the cover ("What would I be doing in a lonely hearts club?!"), but reconsidered when the Beatles sent her a handwritten personal request. Former Beatle Ringo Starr appeared with West in Sextette (1978). He was unpleasantly surprised at first, at all the attention given her on the set (usually reserved for pop stars like The Beatles ), but came to admire West during the shoot, and praised her afterwards. Is sometimes credited with originating the Shimmy (a once-popular dance).

Was banned from NBC Radio after a guest appearance in 1937 with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy that was loaded with flirtatious dialogue and double-entendres. She returned to the network as a guest on the "Perry Como Show" in 1949. She was famous for her morning enemas, which she claimed made her skin like silk and left her "smelling sweet at both ends". On the set of her last film Sextette (1978), co-star Tony Curtis claimed that she was given an enema after being made up, at approximately 11:00 in the morning, as the last step of her preparations before going before the camera. According to psychic Kenny Kingston , she wrote all her plays while in a trance. Her films are credited with single-handedly saving failing and debt-ridden Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy in the early 1930s. Was named #15 Actress on The American Film Institutes 50 Greatest Screen Legends At one point, her chauffeur was Jerry Orbach (who is best known for playing Detective Lennie Briscoe on all four "Law & Order" television series).

Is portrayed by Ann Jillian in Mae West (1982) and by Gloria Gray in Marlene (2000) One of the first women to consistently write the movies she starred in. Playing opposite Ed Wynn in Arthur Hammerstein 's "Sometime," with music by Rudolf Friml , she introduced the shimmy to the Broadway stage in 1918. The dance requires hardly any movement of the feet but continuous movement of the shoulders, torso and pelvis. She had seen the dance at black cafés in Chicago. Once when she was scheduled to play a theater in New Haven, Conneticut, the theater's management refused to let her go on because her act was too "risqué" and canceled the show. Disappointed, Yale University students rioted and wrecked the theater. Eldest of three children of John Patrick West, an occasional prizefighter and livery-stable owner, and Matilda Delker Doelger, a one-time corset and fashion model. A baby girl died before Mae was born the after Mae there was another girl and a boy.

During World War II, Miss West's name was applied to various pieces of military equipment and was thus listed in Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. The Royal Air Force named its inflatable lifejackets "Mae Wests", and United States Army soldiers referred to twin-turreted combat tanks also as "Mae Wests". Was not a smoker or a drinker. Died apparently of natural causes in the wake of a mild stroke she suffered three months prior that left her speech impaired. Also suffered from diabetes the last 15 years of her life. She was born Mary Jane West in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Mae's father, John Patrick "Jack" West, was a featherweight prizefighter called "Battling Jack" West, and later a stable master; he was of English and Irish descent (his own mother was an Irish immigrant). Mae's mother, Matilda Decker Doelger, was an immigrant from Germany. Turned down a role in Elvis Presley 's film Roustabout (1964), which eventually went to Barbara Stanwyck . Was at one point Hollywood's highest paid star.

Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí created one of his most iconic works influenced by her: "Mae West's Lips Sofa" (1937). The Coca-Cola bottle was said to have been designed with Mae West's figure as inspiration. There is a photo in fundamentalist preacher Billy Sunday's autobiography (circa 1932) of Billy Sunday and Mae West pouring out a bottle of beer into the river. Was in consideration for the part of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950) but Gloria Swanson , who went on to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, was cast instead. Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood, California. Although critics thought that she and W.C. Fields worked well together on camera, West reputedly did not admire him. In April 1927, West was convicted of "producing an immoral play", the title of which was Sex. She was sentenced to ten days in jail in New York City, but was given one day off for good behavior. Critic George Jean Nathan once called her "The Statue of Libido". When W.C.

Fields called her "My little broodmare", she almost hit him. Guido Deiro claims that West married his father, Guido Deiro , in 1914 under an assumed name, Catherine Mae Belle West, and on the condition of secrecy. West left Deiro in 1916, and "divorced" him on 9 November 1920. Singer Miss Beverly Arden , sister of Mae West. The comedy entitled "Sex" she wrote in 1926 revived in NY, off Broadway, Dec. 1999. Graduated from Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School in 1911, as did silent film star Norma Talmadge. She had a double thyroid. Her doctor wanted her to have one of her thyroids surgically removed, but she refused as the double thyroid was not affecting her health in the slightest. A "Mae West" is a slang term for type of parachute malfunction called a "lineover" in which the suspension lines divide the main canopy into two sections, lending the appearance of a huge brassiere.

Made her Broadway debut on September 22, 1911, at the New York Folies Bergère, co-owned by Jesse L. Lasky . Twenty-one years later, West signed with Paramount Pictures, which was co-founded by Lasky. Had a chimpanzee she named Coffee that she gave to her friend Ralph Helfer , renowned animal trainer and Hollywood animal behaviorist who owned the "Africa U.S.A." Exotic Animal Ranch in Soledad Canyon, California. Her frank, sexual innuendo-laced play "Sex" opened at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre on April 26, 1926. Ironically, that theatre had been built twelve years earlier by two Christian societies - the People's Pulpit and the International Bible Student's Association - that had intended it to be used for the presentation of biblical films and lectures. Lent her name to life preservers, art, graphs, album covers, statues, table radios, songs, etc. Is mentioned in Cole Porter's song "Anything Goes" from a musical of the same name. Her father built a stage for her in the basement of their house in Brooklyn. Her mother had wanted to be an actress.

Personal Quotes (46) It's better to be looked over than overlooked. A hard man is good to find. Men are my life, diamonds are my career! When women go wrong, men go right after them! When caught between two evils I generally pick the one I've never tried before. When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad, I'm better. Marriage is a great institution. I'm not ready for an institution. It's not the man in your life that counts. It's the life in your man. Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it. I only like two kinds of men: Foreign and Domestic. Too much of a good thing is wonderful. I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing. Don't marry a man to reform him. That's what reform schools are for. It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean. I wrote the story myself. It's all about a girl who lost her reputation but never missed it.

It ain't sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don't break any. Personality is the glitter that sends your little gleam across the footlights and the orchestra pit into that big black space where the audience is. Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere else. I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I'm tired. On desire: Sex is an emotion in motion....love is what you make it and who you make it with. I do all my writing in bed; everybody knows I do my best work there. To err is human, but it feels divine. Few men know how to kiss well. Fortunately, I've always had time to teach them. I always save one boyfriend for a rainy day . . . and another in case it doesn't rain. Why don't you come up sometime and see me? I'm home every evening . . . Come up, and I'll tell your fortune. I freely chose the kind of life I led because I was convinced that a woman has as much right as a man to live the way she does if she does no actual harm to society.

The man I don't like doesn't exist. I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. It isn't what I do, but how I do it. It isn't what I say, but how I say it, and how I look when I do it and say it. I'm not good and tired, just tired. Men are easy to get but hard to keep. [on style] It's all right for a perfect stranger to kiss your hand as long as he's perfect. [on love] A man's kiss is his signature. [on growth] He who hesitates is a damn fool. A dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up. [on Marilyn Monroe ] The only gal who came near to me in the sex appeal department was pretty little Marilyn Monroe . All the others had were big boobs. My advice for those gals who think they have to take their clothes off to be a star is: baby, once you've boned, what's left to create an illusion? Let 'em wonder.I never believed in givin' 'em too much of me. I'm my own original creation. I concentrate on myself most of the time.

That's the only way a person can become a star in the true sense. I never wanted a love that meant surrender of my self-possession. I saw what it did to other people when they loved another person the way I loved myself, and I didn't want that problem. I had to stay in command of my career. [on her popularity within the gay community] They're crazy about me 'cause I give 'em a chance to play. My character is sexy and with humor and they like to imitate me, the things I say, the way I say 'em, the way I move. It's easy for'em to imitate me 'cause the gestures are exaggerated, flamboyant, sexy, and that's what they want to look like, feel like. And I've stood up for 'em. They're good kids. I don't like the police abusin' 'em, and in New York I told 'em, 'When you're hittin' one of those guys, you're hittin' a woman, 'cause a born homosexual is a female in a male body. Almost anything goes, anywhere, if it is good and fast and amusing.

Risque material is only offensive if badly done, without style and charm. I brought my own sophisticated ideas and style to the vaudeville stage but I had to adjust it to the standard of each theatre, and even to each night's audience.. The theatre manager,if he was a man with experience and knew his business, could usually tell me what the people in town were like, and what the difference in audiences was on other nights.I usually found that one night a week you would get a top society crowd, and another night you'd get mostly working-class people. Other nights there would be family groups - especially on Friday nights when the kids didn't have to go to school the next day. Saturday nights everybody was out for a good time, so audiences were both mixed and terrific. Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. Virtue has its own reward, but has no sale at the box office.

I was in the office at Paramount, and they gave me a large book with a lot of photographs of different leading men, and I was sitting at a table or a desk right near the window and the door, and uh, after I looked at a few I kind of glanced out the window and I saw this good-looking guy walk across the street. So, I said, "That's about the best-looking thing in Hollywood: who is he?" So they looked, and they said, "Oh, that's Cary Grant. We haven't used him in a picture as yet, but we made tests of him with some of the starlets." I said, "Well, if this guy can talk, I'll take him." So they called him in, and we met, and he said, "How d'ya do?" and I said, "OK." And they said, "What part?" and I said, "The lead, of course." So he got the lead. 'Beulah peel me a grape'. Salary (5)

Question: """Why don't you come up sometime and see me"" was a famous line by Mae West in the 1933 film ""She Done Him Wrong"". Which actor did she say it to?"
Answer: Cary Grant