Mae West Returns To Her Old Form

Radio Record, 3 June 1938, Page 27

Mae West Returns To Her Old Form

"Every Day’s A Holiday" I’ you like Mae West, you'll probably enjoy her latest picture, "Every Day's a Holiday," because it's up to her early standard, insofar as the censors and the Purity Code avill let her maintaiu that standard. If you don’t like her, you'll be staying away, anyway. This makes "Every Day's a Holiday" an easy film to review. Personally, 1 can’t see much reason for all this fuss about Mae West being ¢rude and objectionable. She's at least honest. She holds up sex &s something to be laughed at openly, which is all the difference between her und, say, Tom Walls. who treats it as something to be leered at. The occisional hearty guffaws produced by Miss West are. in my opinion, more healthy than the sniggers which often punetnate more "respectable" farce. Neither, however, does much harm. (‘ome to think of if, Miss West’s ripe hawdiness is probably far more typical of true British national humour-the humour of the Sandy Powell-loving miusses-than the sophisticated French bedroom farce of the Tom Walls type of picture. Howeyer, that is not a theme to be elaborated in a brief review. ... Naughty Nineties [NX "Every Day’s « Holiday." Mae makes no pretensions to spiritual redemption or joining the Salvation Army, as she did in "Klondike Annie." She's an out-an-out bad lot with a heart of gold, who casts her spell over an assortment of males (including Fdinund = Lowe, Charles Butterworth, Charles Winninger, Walter Catlett and Lloyd Nolan), and @abbles in crooked municipal polities. It's an improbable story, not the least diffienlt thing fo swallow being the proposition that Mae, in an endeavour to eseape the police. could put ona black wig and a French accent, and, thus impersonating & Parisian actress, be not immediately recognisable as her own Inxuriant self, The period is the turn of the century, and Mae helps to carry the aftmosphere of the Naughty Nineties over into the 20th century with a Inusty abandon that is at least amusing. Some may even find it hilarious. Paramount have assisted her with Javish settings and a highly-efficient supporting cast. So far as dialogue goes censorship hasn't left her anything much more than variations on the "Come up and see me" formula; bur, then, she merely has to walk her hips across a room to make speech seem rather superfluons. Still, I don’t altogether agree with the reviewer who said that all that was left of "Every Day’s a Holiday" after the censor bad finished was a series of undniations., ["Every Day's a Holiday." Paramount. Directed by Eddie SutherJand, starring Mae West. First release: June 3.]