[PDF] The Films Of Mae West eBook

Author : Jill Watts
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 627 pages
File Size : 16,49 MB
Release : 2003-04-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0190289716

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"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" Mae West invited and promptly captured the imagination of generations. Even today, years after her death, the actress and author is still regarded as the pop archetype of sexual wantonness and ribald humor. But who was this saucy starlet, a woman who was controversial enough to be jailed, pursued by film censors and banned from the airwaves for the revolutionary content of her work, and yet would ascend to the status of film legend? Sifting through previously untapped sources, author Jill Watts unravels the enigmatic life of Mae West, tracing her early years spent in the Brooklyn subculture of boxers and underworld figures, and follows her journey through burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway and, finally, Hollywood, where she quickly became one of the big screen's most popular--and colorful--stars. Exploring West's penchant for contradiction and her carefully perpetuated paradoxes, Watts convincingly argues that Mae West borrowed heavily from African American culture, music, dance and humor, creating a subversive voice for herself by which she artfully challenged society and its assumptions regarding race, class and gender. Viewing West as a trickster, Watts demonstrates that by appropriating for her character the black tradition of double-speak and "signifying," West also may have hinted at her own African-American ancestry and the phenomenon of a black woman passing for white. This absolutely fascinating study is the first comprehensive, interpretive account of Mae West's life and work. It reveals a beloved icon as a radically subversive artist consciously creating her own complex image.

Author : Simon Louvish
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 526 pages
File Size : 42,86 MB
Release : 2006-11-14
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780312348786

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"Louvish's research cements West's reputation as the definitive siren of suggestion, without whom there would never have been any Sex and the City." ---Publishers Weekly

Author : Jon Tuska
Publisher : Virgin Books Limited
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 41,33 MB
Release : 1992-10
Category :
ISBN : 9780863696077

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A guide to the life and career of Mae West. Beginning in vaudeville at the age of four, it was not until she was in her forties that she made her first film, She Done Him Wrong. Breaking box-office records, it saved Paramount from having to sell out to MGM, and secured her career in films.

Author : James L. Neibaur
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 18,69 MB
Release : 2024-01-27
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN :

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Mae West is one of the true icons of show business, enjoying success on stage and in movies. She created her character, wrote her own dialog, and understood self-promotion. An innately talented entertainer, Mae began working on stage as a small child and was still pursuing creative endeavors in the last year of her life. This book concentrates on her movie work, and although she only made 12 movies, they are what we have to represent her work. Her best movies were edgy and challenging along with being entertaining, and have lived on as classics. ABOUT THE AUTHOR James L. Neibaur is a film historian and scholar who has written over 35 books and hundreds of articles, essays, and reviews for various film magazines and website blogs.

Author : Ramona Curry
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 49,95 MB
Release : 1996
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780816627905

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Before Madonna, before Marilyn, there was Mae. The impact of Mae West - through her films, attitude, and aphorisms ("Too much of a good thing can be wonderful"; "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?") - continues to reverberate through American popular culture more than fifteen years after her death. In Too Much of a Good Thing, Ramona Curry examines the interplay between West's bawdy, worldly persona and twentieth-century gender and media politics. Although West has remained an important figure, her image has fulfilled varied cultural functions. In the thirties, she was a lightning rod for debates over morality and censorship. In the seventies, the complexity of her portrayal of gender made her a controversial figure for both the gay rights and feminist movements. Curry not only analyzes the symbolic roles West has occupied, arguing that the entertainer represents a carefully orchestrated transgression of race, class, and gender expectations, she also illustrates how icons of pop culture often distill contested social issues, serving diverse and even contradictory political functions. A pithy and innovative look at what Mae West means, Too Much of a Good Thing is must reading for fans, film buffs, and anyone interested in how popular culture evolves and circulates in the United States.

Author : Lillian Schlissel
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 31,44 MB
Release : 2013-01-11
Category : Drama
ISBN : 1136041982

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Mae West, wise-cracking vaudeville performer, was one of the most controversial figures of her era. Rarely, however, do people think of Mae West as a writer. In Three Plays By Mae West, Lillian Schlissel brings this underexplored part of West's career to the fore by offering for the first time in book form, three of the plays West wrote in the 1920s--Sex (1926), The Drag (1927) and Pleasure Man (1928). With an insightful introduction by Schlissel, this book offers a unique look into to the life and early career of this legendary stage and screen actress.

Author : Clive Hirschhorn
Publisher :
Page : 135 pages
File Size : 44,21 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780979099441

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In 1968, noted film and theatre critic Clive Hirschhorn was a young feature writer for the London Sunday Express. In Hollywood on assignment, he heard that the legendary Mae West "loved British accents" and was able to get an interview with the 75-year-old film star. His observations on the "official" Mae and the actual woman behind the public persona provide new insights into this complex, much caricatured, and compelling cultural icon. This book offers a funny, touching, and revealing account of the life of the woman who made it possible to say "sex" in public. Her scripted quips are legendary, and she was able to zing them in real life. When Hirschhorn asked her how she managed to look so uncannily young-at 75 her skin was flawless and her face unlined-she replied: "No secret. I go to bed early. I meditate. I eat all the correct foods, I don't smoke or drink, and I believe with a passion in myself. You can only beat nature when you show the bitch who's boss " Leonard Maltin in his Foreword says, "Mae West was an absolute-and resolute-original. There has never been anyone else quite like her. Her reputation has survived the decades. Young people might not know of her, but she is still widely quoted and referred to in articles and books. How many other show business personalities who flourished in the 1920s and '30s can say the same in the first decade of the 21st century?" Clive Hirschhorn is the author of the best-selling The Hollywood Musical, as well as Gene Kelly: A Biography, The Films of James Mason, The Warner Bros. Story, The Universal Story, and The Columbia Story.