This Week in History: 1933

 Mae West provided an escape for those 'suffering through The Great Depression

and sabre-rattling: of Adolf Hitler in Germany.

Mae West, who wrote and starred in
I'm No Angel, reeled off some of her
most famous lines in the 1933 movie.

   November 1933 was not a cheerful time. The Great Depression had been raging

for three long years and the old world order seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

   In Europe, new German chancellor Adolf Hitler was sabre-rattling. In B.C., the Liberals and CCF were fighting an election over whether to reform or replace capitalism.

   People needed an escape and Mae West was ready to provide it.

   The platinum blond bombshell was only five feet tall, but she had a lot of oomph. And the most oomph of her storied career came in the movie I'm No Angel, which opened at the Capitol Theatre on Nov. 3, 1933.

   "Just a sensitive girl who climbed the ladder of success, wrong by wrong!" trumpeted one of several ads for the movie. "Torso-slinging in tights, tiaras and ... tea-gowns"

   I'm No Angel was West's tour-de-force, a delightfully ridiculous yarn about a circus gal and her misadventures in love.

   Nest wrote the screenplay and starred as Tira, a lion tamer and dancer for Big Bill Barton's Wonder Show. Tira was sexy and could stick her head in a lion's mouth, qualities which simply slay wealthy New Yorker Kirk Lawrence (Kent Taylor), who breaks off his engagement to a blueblood to party with Mae.

   His friend Jack Clayton (Cary Grant) tries to get Mae to dump Kirk, and winds up falling in Iove with her himself. Hijinks ensue, which allow West to reel off some of her most famous lines, including "Come up and see me sometime," "Sure I'm good, but when I'm bad, I'm better, and "Beulah, peel me a grape!"

   West was 39 years old when I'm No Angel appeared. She didn't break into the movies until 1932 after enjoying a solid stage career in New York.
   Her most famous (and infamous) stage show was called Sex and landed her a 10-day jail sentence in 1927 for obscenity. When she got out, she was a star.

   I'm No Angel was a huge hit, and West became one of Hollywood's biggest stars in the 1930s. But her double entendres didn't always go down too well with censors, who apparently forced her to rewrite many lines.

   The censors probably would have approved of Edna Archer, though. Edna was the cartoon star of a series of bizarre B.C. Telephone ads that ran at the same time I'm No Angel was playing.

   One ad features a bug-eyed Edna holding a bug-eyed kid, which is actually a telephone.

   "I used to be lonely — but now I have a telephone;' Edna states.

   "I felt like a hermit when we were without a telephone. Those invitations that usually come by telephone didn't come at all then."

   A second ad features Edna marooned on a desert island. It's headlined "Like poor

old Robinson Crusoe — no telephone."

   The Liberals won the 1933 pro­vincial election in a landslide, taking 34 of 47 seats and 42 per cent of the vote. The CCF was contesting its first full elec­tion and became the official Opposition, taking seven seats and 31.5 per cent of the vote.

   One woman was elected to the legislature, only the second to be elected in B.C. history. The Sun had her photo the next day, and a small story on her victory. But she was identified as Mrs. Paul Smith, rather than by her own name, Helen.

JOHN MACKIE

VANCOUVER SUN