The deliciously lubricious Mae West does her thing as a free spirited woman going through men like a hot knife through butter: As the title makes clear.
West plays the man’s game better than the men do but they still cannot resist her – especially not Cary Grant who very much plays second fiddle to her star turn. She does not act but rather stands looking at the other actors or walks in a ludicrously exaggerated catwalk while delivering a series of witty, Oscar Wilde like one liners. “When I’m good I’m good; when I’m bad I’m better. It’s not the men in my life so much as the life in my men. (& the inevitable) Come up and see me sometime.” Her sexual purring at good looking – and preferably rich – men comes deep from her diaphragm and says all we will ever need to know about what is on her mind.
More a vaudeville routine than a true acting performance, west breezes through the plot with the feeling that no matter what happens everything will turn out right. The fact that it does in no way diminishes the sheer fun of her best work, of which this is one. That she is able to get away with so much sexually oriented material within the confines of the UK censors’ U Certificate is nothing short of miraculous; while proving they have a sense of humour.
‘Beulah, peel me a grape!’
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