Join us this Thursday, July 2nd. to watch Mae West and Cary Grant in “SHE DONE HIM WRONG” (Dir.
Lowell Sherman, USA, 66 min), the third screening in the SUMMER CAMP Film Series!
Day, Time & Location: Thursday, July 2 at 5:45 p.m. in FFB-011.
*ABOUT THE FILM*
Set in the 1890s, SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933) gives us Mae West at her brazen best and Cary Grant in his first major film role. Based on West’s 1928 stage play, DIAMOND LIL, the film follows Lady Lou (West), a barroom entertainer with a soft spot for men in trouble, as she seduces a mission worker/undercover cop (Grant) and sings bawdy songs (including “Frankie and Johnny” and “I Like A Guy What Takes His Time”), all while unknowingly becoming involved in a murder and white slavery ring. Prefiguring both the femme fatale of film noir and more manufactured studio stars like Marilyn Monroe, West is a singular figure in film history, matchless in her wit and suggestive invitations to “Come up some time and see me.”
With its racy combination of crime, religion, and sexual innuendo, SHE DONE HIM WRONG helped spur the stricter enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code). This would be the last time the country would be lured by a tagline promising: “Mae West gives a ‘HOT TIME’ to the Nation.”
To fully appreciate West as a camp icon, we’ll also watch a scene from her last film, SEXTETTE (1978), in which an 86 year-old West appears in drag as “Mae West.”