Greatest Films of 1933
I'm No Angel (1933), 87 minutes, D: Wesley Ruggles

This was one of Mae West's funniest and most-appreciated films (with lots of double entendres) of her career's 12 films, and one of only two films in which West co-starred with Cary Grant. Her third film followed the release of She Done Him Wrong (1933) that reunited her again with Grant. The star of a carnival side show act in Big Bill Barton's Wonder Show, managed by Big Bill Barton (Edward Arnold), was buxom dancer and floozy lady lion tamer Tira (Mae West). In the film's opening, the vamp was introduced by carnival barker Flea Madigan (Russell Hopton) to the leering mostly-male crowd as "the beautiful Tira, dancing, singing marvel of the age, supreme flower of feminine pulchritude....Boys, with the right kind of encouragement, she'll throw discretion to the winds and her hips to the north, east, south and west." She paraded into view with the line: "No wisecracks, now. A penny for your thoughts....Get the idea, boys....Ya follow me?" Later, she advised her friend Thelma (Dorothy Peterson) with her personal motto: "Always remember, honey. A good motto is: 'Take all you can get and give as little as possible.'" The promiscuous Tira also explained how she nabbed rich men - with her philosophy of how to treat men: "Don't forget, honey. Never let one man worry your mind. Find 'em, fool 'em and forget 'em." When not performing, the cold-hearted dame was working in tandem with the carnival's pickpocket Slick Wiley (Ralf Harolde), who pretended to be Tira's husband, to fleece many of her prospective suitors during numerous dalliances, to acquire jewelry, expensive gifts and other favors. She entered into an agreement with manager Bill Barton to be the star attraction for his new NYC show, including the death-defying act of putting her head inside of a lion's mouth. Backstage, she was introduced to "silk hats" (high-society people), including rich playboy Kirk Lawrence (Kent Taylor) who fell hard for her, and caused his snobbish, upper class fiancee Alicia Hatton (Gertrude Michael) to be insanely jealous. When Kirk's playboyish cousin, millionaire leading man Jack Clayton (Cary Grant) was concerned about Kirk's passion for Tira and suggested that Kirk drop Tira before she ruined his life, he also fell in love with Tira. But shortly later after spurning Tira, she sued Jack for breach of promise and hired lawyer Benny Pinkowitz (Gregory Ratoff) to represent her. In the hilarious madcap courtroom scene that ended the film, Tira decided to handle the cross-examination herself, and exhibited great wit and charm. Jack countered by assembling all her ex-lovers to testify against her, but then allowed her to win the case, and ultimately reconciled with her. The film's most quoted lines of West's dialogue were: "Oh Beulah...peel me a grape," "When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad, I'm better," and "Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men."

Morning Glory (1933), 74 minutes, D: Lowell Sherman

Director Lowell Sherman's and RKO's showbiz-related, romantic drama was adapted from a Zoe Atkins play, and remade by Sidney Lumet as Stage Struck (1958) with Susan Strasberg. It was in the tradition of other backstage dramas (such as Gregory La Cava's Stage Door (1937)) and tales of unknown actresses rising to stardom (such as William Wellman's A Star is Born (1937)). The future career of Katharine Hepburn, in only her third film, was launched due to her portrayal of a naive and pretentious aspiring actress. Her role paralleled her real-life career experience. Hepburn was awarded with the first (of four) Best Actress Oscars - the film's only nomination. In the story, headstrong, starstruck, yet naive small-town theatre actress from New England (Vermont), Eva Lovelace (Katharine Hepburn) wished to be a stage actress in the big city of New York, to make it big on Broadway. Wearing a shabby coat, she was waiting in the lobby of a major Broadway management casting office (Lewis Easton Productions), where she met her competition - a more experienced actress Miss Gwendolyn Hall (Geneva Mitchell) swathed in a fur wrap, who complained about the number of auditioners. While waiting to speak to Easton, she was befriended by kindly, paternalistic veteran stage actor Robert Harley Hedges (C. Aubrey Smith). She introduced herself and explained her name to him with her non-stop, vivacious chatterbox style, and was even able to forcibly convince him to become her vocal coach and mentor. Then, the yearning, young and inexperienced Eva met with handsome, slimy, middle-aged opportunistic, philandering Broadway theatre owner-manager Lewis Easton (Adolphe Menjou) to unabashedly promote herself. She showed him a remarkable letter from George Bernard Shaw, described her ambitious dreams, and exhibited incredible will and determination to make something of herself. Eva seemed more in love with the romanticized idea of becoming an actress without realizing it would take talent and hard work. Earnest young playwright Joe Sheridan (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), the scriptwriter of Easton's new comedic play, became entranced with Eva and her effervescence when he overheard the conversation and took a look at the letter. Eva vowed that she would never allow her talent to go into decline, and would rather dramatically commit a farewell suicide on-stage after doing her best and serving a useful life. Even after Easton departed, Eva continued chatting with his male assistant Mr. Seymour (Fredric Santly) in the outer office, offering to take any mostly-congenial role for $20 dollars a week; she then expressed her life's philosophy as an artist who must be "free to love, free to dream, free to sin, if you call it sin." After initial career disappointments and on the verge of being penniless and hungry, at a celebrity cocktail party held in Easton's penthouse, she became champagne-drunk, completely uninhibited, and almost sat in his lap and boasted and revealed way too much about herself. In front of the guests, she drunkenly performed two Shakespeare oratories - first Hamlet's well-known monologue ("To be or not to be"), and then a show-offy soliloquy excerpt from the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene, taking the part of love-struck Juliet. There was subdued applause when she finished, and Hedges complimented her: "Stylishly beautiful! Impossibly beautiful!" Even Easton added: "Really charming!" She soon became involved in a love triangle between her Broadway manager Louis Easton and Joseph Sheridan. Finally, she got her big break. Fifteen minutes before the curtain debut opening on Broadway for The Golden Bough, Easton's troubled, arrogant and temperamental blonde star-diva Miss Rita Vernon (Mary Duncan) outrageously demanded: "I want my name in electric lights from tomorrow on. I want a run of the play contract to play the part in New York, on the road and in London. I want $1,500 a week and half the profits, and a cut in on the picture rights - Think it over!...I don't need Broadway!" She then asserted that if she didn't get her way, she wouldn't go onstage. Easton decided to let her go and reluctantly replaced her with her understudy ("the little Lovelace girl") - Eva - even without a rehearsal! Easton returned to tell Rita of his decision: "Since you've decided to act in this most unprofessional manner and to take advantage of me at a moment like this, l've decided to let you do exactly as you please." Eva was petrified of failing and claimed she was too tired to act to Sheridan, but then she bolstered her self-confidence and affirmed: "Oh, it was silly the way I just talked. Listen, I'll give a performance tonight that will make you proud of me." It was her triumphant debut performance on Broadway. After the show backstage in her dressing room, Eva was congratulated by her middle-aged wardrobe woman Nellie Navarre (Helen Ware): "Your performance, my dear, was inspirational. I've seen them come, and I've seen them go. This is your moment. May God bless you while it lasts." Easton also congratulated Eva, but insensitively ignored her attempts at affection (she told him: "You're in my heart"). He told her that she didn't belong to any man, but only to Broadway and the theater: ("You must put me out of your heart. I don't belong there, and you don't belong in mine. I'm not the man for you, I never was. You don't belong to any man now. You belong to, to Broadway, to theatre, lights") - causing Eva to feel emotionally devastated. She was also commended, but also lectured and warned by Hedges about instant success going to her head - like a "morning glory" which bloomed beautifully, but then quickly withered and died: ("Every year, in every theater, some young person makes a hit. Sometimes it's a big hit, sometimes a little one. It's a distinct success, but how many of them keep their heads? How many of them work? Youth comes to the fore. Youth has its hour of glory, but too often it's only a morning glory, the flower that fades before the sun is very high"). Hedges added that Nellie was very much like Eva - she was an "overnight" young star years earlier who became "the toast of the town and then faded out." Sheridan also expressed his love for Eva, and she was grateful for his support and understanding ("You've always understood me"), but Easton's earlier rejection of her overshadowed his declaration, and she was unable to accept it. In the film's poignant closing with Nellie, Eva honestly expressed her loneliness, her slight fear and emptiness, and her loss of love. But then with her confidence strengthened about her love for Sheridan: ("I can make him happy, and he can make me happy"), she embraced her tearful assistant, and declared to her that she didn't care if she was a morning glory, speaking defiantly. She delivered a curtain-closing (last lines) statement, vowing that she would not quickly blossom, wither and die like so many other performers: "Nellie, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid of being just a morning glory. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. Why should I be afraid? I'm not afraid." Whether her quick success would be long-lasting or withering like a "morning glory" remained to be seen.

Secrets (1933), 85 minutes, D: Frank Borzage

In director Frank Borzage's melodramatic western remake, silent screen actress Mary Pickford, who was a major star in silents and then in four talking pictures (1929-1933), made her final screen appearance. The film's screenplay (by Frances Marion) was based upon the 1922 Broadway stage play (by Rudolph Besier and May Edington), with stage actress Margaret Lawrence. Interestingly, director Borzage had helmed the earlier silent film Secrets (1924) starring Norma Talmadge. In the story set in New England during the 1860s, the relationship between two young lovers Mary Marlowe (Mary Pickford) and John Carlton (Leslie Howard) was opposed by Mary's parents. Mary's wealthy, shipping magnate and banker father William Marlowe (C. Aubrey Smith) and mother (Blanche Frederici) were pressuring her to marry stuffy English aristocrat Lord Hurley (Herbert Evans). John Carlton, one of her father's clerks, was discharged from his job when their "brazen" love letters were intercepted. At Mary's garden window, John told her of his plan to travel westward to start a new life ("I've got to make a fortune for both of us"), and promised to send for her once he was established. She insisted on immediately joining him ("I can't let you go...take me with you"), and they eloped and ran away together to California after a quick marriage. Their journey westward via trains and wagons was filled with hardships and personal struggles, but finally they settled in a valley, where they built a house, tended a herd of cattle, and had a baby son ("Little John"). One day while John was away with hired hand "Sunshine" (Ned Sparks), notorious cattle rustler and outlaw Jake Houser (Allan Sears), with his brother Davey and his gang stole John's cattle. Seeking revenge, John organized with other ranchers and lynched three of the desperadoes, but Jake was still on the loose and returned to place a siege on the Carlton home. During the gunfight and attack, Mary helped to defend her husband John by shooting and killing Jake. However, she discovered that their ill and feverish young son had died during the gun battle. The tragic scene of Mary's rocking of her dead baby and clinging to it within her arms was the film's emotional highpoint. John's notoriety for pursuing the gang led to his entry into politics and later, he campaigned for governor of California. By this time, the Carltons had four other children. On the night of the election at their mansion, John's scandalous affair with another woman, Senora Lolita Martinez (Mona Maris), became public knowledge. Their relationship ended and despite John's unfaithfulness, Mary (who had known the terrible secret of John's adultery all along) stood by him and he won the governorship. After years of service, he also attained a position in the US Senate for thirty years. In their old age, the rich and elderly Carltons decided to retire and return to California from Washington DC. Mary tried to explain to her four demanding middle-aged children, who disagreed with their decision to leave and couldn't understand their parents, about why they wanted to move away and enjoy their retirement years after 50 years of marriage. The parents refused to sign over guardianship of the estate to their children, and Mary stressed that they wanted to hold onto their many secrets for the remainder of their days: "In every marriage, there are secrets which only one man and one woman know. Your father and I have these secrets and they're ours, and we can't share them with you... secret joys, secret sorrows, lovely and some dreadful secrets. But there, they all belong to us, and your father and I want to be alone with them." They locked their door and then secretly escaped out a back window to drive away in their butler's car, to the tune of "Oh, Susanna!" - repeating their elopement and westward escape of many years earlier (in an overlapping dissolve).

She Done Him Wrong (1933), 66 minutes, D: Lowell Sherman

Mae West's starring role in this lusty Gay 90s spoof featured lots of clever innuendo, witty and irreverent one-liners, and bold carnality. It was buxom Mae West's star-making, most famous film role as a liberated, racy woman who enjoyed her sexuality. The comedy included West's singing of "Frankie and Johnny," "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone," and "I Like a Man What Takes His Time." In the plot, bejeweled chanteuse and brash entertainer Lady Lou (Mae West) worked in the 1890s Bowery bar-room saloon of her boss and benefactor Gus Jordan (Noah Beery, Sr.), who had given her many diamonds (hence her nickname Diamond Lil). Gus (who was running for Sheriff) secretly trafficked in white slavery (prostitution) and ran a counterfeiting ring (to help finance Lou's expensive diamonds). Gus worked with two other crooked entertainer-assistants or accomplices: Rita (Rafaela Ottiano), a Russian, and Serge Stanieff (Gilbert Roland), Rita's suave boyfriend-lover (who also admired Lou). Next door to the saloon was a city mission (a thinly-disguised Salvation Army), whose young handsome and dashing missionary director, Captain Cummings (Cary Grant) was, in reality (later revealed) an undercover agent working to infiltrate and expose the illegal activities in the bar. Lou's past was uncovered when she heard from her forgotten former boyfriend Chick Clark (Owen Moore). He had been convicted for robbery and went to Sing Sing prison for trying to steal diamonds for her (after being set up by shyster Dan Flynn (David Landau)); Flynn was also trying to expose Jordan's criminality, take over the saloon, romance Lady Lou, and run for the office of Sheriff himself. Meanwhile, Lou was more smitten and attracted to the young handsome, psalm-singing Captain Cummings from the next-door mission, and invited him to visit her in her apartment, with two variations on her famous come-on line: "Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me?" Lou was tipped off by Flynn that Gus' illegal operations (including counterfeiting) had been found out by a slick undercover agent ("dick") nicknamed "The Hawk." At the same time, Chick had escaped from prison and was pressuring Lady Lou to run away with him. A young suicidal runaway named Sally Glynn (Rochelle Hudson) had been sold into 'white slavery' (either as a pickpocket or prostitute) by Rita and Serge. As the film was concluding, Serge attempted to romance Lou with the gift of a diamond pin (it belonged to Rita), but was caught by the jealous Rita. During a struggle, Lou accidentally stabbed Rita to death with the sharp pin. Lou had her bodyguard Spider Kane (Dewey Robinson) dispose of Rita's body, while she would take to the stage to sing. As the film concluded, shots rang out as Chick killed Flynn in the saloon. The gunfire drew a police raid upon the establishment. Cummings revealed himself to Gus as the undercover federal agent "The Hawk" with a badge, arrested Gus and Serge, and sent them to jail to end their criminal operations and activities. Chick was also apprehended by the Hawk and his men during the confrontation. The Hawk also pulled out handcuffs for Lou to also arrest her and take her to jail for her association with criminals; the Hawk took Lou away to 'prison' in an open, horse-drawn carriage rather than in the police wagon. Instead of handcuffing her, though, he had another alternative - he put his own diamond ring on her finger, and then threatened 'jailing her' with a marital proposal that she gladly accepted.