I'm No Angel

I'm No Angel
1933 - Paramount Pictures
Directed By Wesley Ruggles



SYNOPSIS

Tira (Mae West) is a singer/lion tamer in a small time circus. She moves to the big time when she develops a new act where she puts her head in a lion's mouth. The act brings her a lot more money and a higher class of gentleman callers. She catches the eye and is showered with gifts from an already engaged millionaire (Kent Taylor.) When his rich cousin (Cary Grant) implores Tira to break it off, they fall in love... but their relationship becomes tangled in a legal mess.



MY THOUGHTS

The brassy Mae West hits the big screen again and delivers one of the funniest comedies of the early 1930's.

This bawdy pre-code film is filled with so many risque one-liners and double entendres, it's amazing it made it into theaters!
"I don't show my good points to strangers!"
"When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad, I'm better."
Fortune teller: "I see a change of position." Tira: "Sitting... or reclining? "
"She'd make a wiggling worm become paralyzed!"

Some of the lines would likely even make Groucho Marx blush.

In addition to starring, Mae West scripted the film. It's well paced, loaded with humor and blends in some musical numbers and a bit of drama. The film moves like a runaway truck going down a mountain road. It starts off at a fast pace and continues to pick up speed as it rolls along.

Still, it takes 50 minutes to introduce Cary Grant into the film. He isn't given much to do but be charming and make Tira interested in him. He made a splash earlier in 1933, in West's She Done Him Wrong and this was the only other film he appeared in with her.



Despite Grant and the other solid supporting roles, there's no mistaking who the star is here.

In this day and age, Mae West comes off as beyond over-the-top with her confidence, her sauntering walk and not-so-subtle dialogue delivery. But she does it so well, you fall under her spell like every man in the film! She's one of a kind.
West sings a handful of musical numbers throughout the film and they're just as enjoyable as her saucy one-liners.
The court scenes where she questions several of her former flings is a delight. It takes what could have been the 'standard cliche court ending' we've seen countless times in film and television and turns it on its ear and is by far the highlight of this great film.

It was rare in the 1930's to show a woman play such a strong (and overtly sexual) character on the big screen and no one could do it better than Mae West!