''I'm No Angel'' is a 1933

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

film directed by

Wesley Ruggles Wesley Ruggles (June 11, 1889 – January 8, 1972) was an American film director. Life and work He was born in Los Angeles, California, younger brother of actor Charlie Ruggles. He began his career in 1915 as an actor, appearing in a do ...

, and starring

Mae West Mae West (born Mary Jane West; August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American stage and film actress, playwright, screenwriter, singer, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned over seven decades. She was known for her breezy ...

and

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...

. West received sole story and screenplay credit. It is one of her films that was not subjected to heavy censorship.

Plot

Tira (

) shimmies and sings in the

sideshow In North America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair, or other such attraction. Types There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions: *The Ten-in-One offers a program of ten ...

of Big Bill Barton's Wonder Show, while her current boyfriend,

pickpocket Pickpocketing is a form of larceny that involves the stealing of money or other valuables from the person or a victim's pocket without them noticing the theft at the time. It may involve considerable dexterity and a knack for misdirection. A th ...

"Slick" (

Ralf Harolde Ralf Harolde (born Ralph Harold Wigger, May 17, 1899 – November 11, 1974) was an American character actor who often played gangsters. Between 1920 and 1963, he appeared in 99 films, including '' Smart Money'' with Edward G. Robinson and ...

), relieves her distracted audience of their valuables for Big Bill ( Edward Arnold). One of the rich customers, Ernest Brown, arranges a private rendezvous, during which Slick barges in and attempts to run a badger game on the customer. The customer threatens to call the cops, so Slick whacks him over the head with a bottle. Mistakenly thinking he has killed the man, Slick flees, but is caught and jailed. Fearing that Slick will implicate her, Tira asks Big Bill for a loan to retain her lawyer, Bennie Pinkowitz (

Gregory Ratoff Gregory Ratoff (born Grigory Vasilyevich Ratner; russian: Григорий Васильевич Ратнер, tr. ; April 20, c. 1893 – December 14, 1960) was a Russian-born American film director, actor and producer. As an actor, he was bes ...

). He agrees on condition that she does her lion taming act, which includes putting her head into the mouth of one of the beasts, promising her that it will get her (and him) to the "Big Show". It does. (West did some of her own stunts, including riding an elephant into the ring.) Tira's fame takes her to New York City, where wealthy Kirk Lawrence (

Kent Taylor Kent Taylor (born Louis William Weiss; May 11, 1907 – April 11, 1987) was an American actor of film and television. Taylor appeared in more than 110 films, the bulk of them B-movies in the 1930s and 1940s, although he also had roles in more pr ...

) is smitten, despite being engaged to snobbish socialite Alicia Hatton ( Gertrude Michael). He showers her with expensive gifts. Kirk's friend and even richer cousin, Jack Clayton (

), goes to see Tira to ask her to leave Kirk and his fiancée alone. He ends up falling for her himself. Tira and Jack’s romance leads to a wedding engagement. Tira tells Big Bill she is quitting to get married. Unwilling to lose his prize act, he has Slick, recently released from prison, sneak into Tira's penthouse suite, where Jack finds him in his robe. As a result, Jack breaks off the engagement. Tira sues Jack for breach of promise. The defense tries to use her past relationships to discredit her, but the judge allows her to cross examine the witnesses herself and in doing so she wins over not only the judge and jury, but also Jack. Jack agrees to give her a big settlement check. When he goes to see her, Tira tears up the check, and the two reconcile.

Context

''I'm No Angel'' was released immediately after '' She Done Him Wrong'', when Mae West was one of the nation's biggest box office attractions and its most controversial star. In the early 1930s, West's films were an important factor in saving Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy. During the difficult times of the Great Depression, many filmgoers responded enthusiastically to West, especially to her portrayal of a woman "from the wrong side of the tracks" achieving success both economically and socially. Grant West I'm No Angel Still 1933

Cary Grant starred opposite her for the second and final time; their first film together had been ''She Done Him Wrong''. Grant remained annoyed for decades that West often took credit for his career despite the fact that he had made major films before. The smash hit ''

Blonde Venus ''Blonde Venus'' is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film starring Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall and Cary Grant. It was produced and directed by Josef von Sternberg from a screenplay by Jules Furthman and S. K. Lauren, adapted from a story b ...

'', starring

Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...

and Cary Grant, predates ''She Done Him Wrong'' by a year even though Mae West always claimed to have discovered Grant for her film, amusingly elaborating that up until then he had only made "some tests with starlets." She would frequently claim to various reporters through the years that she spotted him as an unknown walking across a parking lot, asked who he was (nobody knew according to her story) and stated that, "If he can talk, I'll use him in my next picture." This tale remains routinely incorporated into most magazine articles about either West or Grant to this day. West's ribald satire outraged moralists. Film historians cite her as one of the factors for the strict Hollywood

production code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...

that soon followed. The Hays Office forced a few changes, including the title of the song "No One Does It Like a Dallas Man", altered to "No One Loves Me Like a Dallas Man".

David Niven James David Graham Niven (; 1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Major Pollock in '' Separate Tables'' (1958). Niven's other roles ...

claims, in an interview on Parkinson, that the Hays Office changed the title from "It Ain't No Sin".

Cast

as Tira *

as Jack Clayton *

as Benny Pinkowitz * Edward Arnold as "Big Bill" Barton *

as "Slick" Wiley *

as Kirk Lawrence * Gertrude Michael as Alicia Hatton *

Russell Hopton Harry Russell Hopton (February 18, 1900 – April 7, 1945) was an American film actor and director. Biography Hopton was born in New York City, New York. He appeared in 110 films between 1926 and 1945, often playing streetwise characters f ...

as "Flea" Madigan *

Dorothy Peterson Bergetta "Dorothy" Peterson (25 December 1897 - 3 October 1979) was an American actress. She began her acting career on Broadway before appearing in more than eighty Hollywood films. Early years Peterson was born in Hector, Minnesota, the dau ...

as Thelma * William B. Davidson as Ernest Brown (as Wm. B. Davidson) * Gertrude Howard as Beulah Thorndyke, Tira's main maid *

Libby Taylor Libby Taylor (1902-1961) was an African American character actress of the stage and screen who was active in Hollywood from the 1930s through the 1950s. Biography In 1933, while working as a struggling actress in Harlem, she accepted Mae West's ...

as Libby, Tira's hairdressing maid *

Hattie McDaniel Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1893October 26, 1952) was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedian. For her role as Mammy in ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind'' (1939), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, ...

as Tira's manicurist (uncredited) *

Irving Pichel Irving Pichel (June 24, 1891 – July 13, 1954) was an American actor and film director, who won acclaim both as an actor and director in his Hollywood career. Career Pichel was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh. He attended Pittsburgh Cent ...

as Clayton's lawyer (uncredited) * Walter Walker as the judge (uncredited)

Reception

The film was Paramount's biggest hit of the year. It was also Franklin Roosevelt's favourite film.

Signature Mae West lines

* "Oh, Beulah, peel me a grape!" * "Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men." This line was nominated for the American Film Institute's 2005 list AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes. * "When I'm good I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better."

Soundtrack

* "They Call Me Sister Honky-Tonk" (1933) (uncredited) ** Music by Harvey Oliver Brooks ** Lyrics by Gladys DuBois and Ben Ellison ** Sung by Mae West * "That Dallas Man" (1933) (uncredited) ** Music by Harvey Oliver Brooks ** Lyrics by Gladys DuBois and Ben Ellison ** Played on a record on which Mae West sings * "I Found a New Way to Go to Town" (1933) (uncredited) ** Music by Harvey Oliver Brooks ** Lyrics by Gladys DuBois and Ben Ellison ** Sung by Mae West * "I Want You, I Need You" (1933) (uncredited) ** Music by Harvey Oliver Brooks ** Lyrics by Ben Ellison ** Played on a piano and sung by Mae West * "I'm No Angel" (1933) (uncredited) ** Music by Harvey Oliver Brooks ** Lyrics by Gladys DuBois and Ben Ellison ** Sung by Mae West at the end and during the closing credits

References

Bibliography

* ''When I'm Bad, I'm Better: Mae West, Sex, and American Entertainment'', by Marybeth Hamilton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). * ''Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It'', by Mae West (Avon: 1959). ASIN B0007HCX2O * ''Mae West: A Bio-Bibliography'', by Carol M. Ward (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989). * ''The Complete Films of Mae West'', by Jon Tuska (Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Group, 1992).

External links

* * * *
Reel Classics

republished original ''Variety'' and ''New York Times'' reviews
Filmsite.org review
{{Wesley Ruggles 1933 films 1930s romantic musical films 1933 romantic comedy films American black-and-white films American musical comedy films American romantic comedy films Circus films Films directed by Wesley Ruggles Films set in New York City Paramount Pictures films Films with screenplays by Mae West 1933 musical comedy films American romantic musical films 1930s English-language films 1930s American films