I love Mae West but this film stinks. She looks GREAT. She's slimmer, trimmer, and actually looks lovely. The sets are pretty terrific, the costumes grand, etc., but the censors have scrubbed her so clean that one wonders why she bothered to make this film.
I heard perhaps two or three (very mild) sexual double entendres throughout the entire length of this dull dud. Mae West may be in this movie but the Mae West character is absent. Instead we have actors (other than Miss West the film is 99% male) playing up their not-so-funny scenes to the point of hysterical convulsions (Charles Winninger is the most guilty culprit -- he is so over-the-top that he makes Jerry Lewis look tame). There's nothing funny about an unfunny script being desperately played like it's a screwball comedy.
The plot? Ugh. Why would a talented, glamorous, and successful stage star give up her career to become a crook, selling the Brooklyn Bridge to morons and stealing gowns and firs from department store windows? I have no idea, but that's the premise we're asked to swallow. And how is it that as soon as someone suggests to this crook that she give up her lengthy crime spree and resume her career, she's back on stage in a flash, wowing tons of aggressively cheering crowds? Don't ask me, I have a headache. And I HATE films that use this old tired ploy: somehow when Mae puts on a dark wig and speaks with a French accent no one recognizes her. Huh? Does everyone have stupid written on their foreheads?? In most of Mae West's films there is character development for all the essential roles. In this film this crucial element is missing so I found myself never caring a lick about anyone in the film, especially Mae West's Peaches O'Day. "Every Day's a Holiday" is a far cry from her earlier films. Remember rooting for Tira the lion tamer? And how about Mae masquerading as Sister Annie Alden and become serious about religion in her dramatic masterpiece "Klondike Annie"? And it was sure fun to see her spoof her own sexy movie star persona in "Go West, Young Man."
If you buy the entertainer-becomes-a-crook-reverts-to-entertainer premise and you don't mind a Mae West movie without Mae West saying anything funny or sexy and you like a dull script played like it's the Marx Brothers, you may be able to stomach "Every Day's a Holiday."
PS -- there's a boom mike shadow that appears toward the end of Mae's first visit to Charles Winninger's mansion -- it appears on one of the columns. It's the most interesting part of this film.
I heard perhaps two or three (very mild) sexual double entendres throughout the entire length of this dull dud. Mae West may be in this movie but the Mae West character is absent. Instead we have actors (other than Miss West the film is 99% male) playing up their not-so-funny scenes to the point of hysterical convulsions (Charles Winninger is the most guilty culprit -- he is so over-the-top that he makes Jerry Lewis look tame). There's nothing funny about an unfunny script being desperately played like it's a screwball comedy.
The plot? Ugh. Why would a talented, glamorous, and successful stage star give up her career to become a crook, selling the Brooklyn Bridge to morons and stealing gowns and firs from department store windows? I have no idea, but that's the premise we're asked to swallow. And how is it that as soon as someone suggests to this crook that she give up her lengthy crime spree and resume her career, she's back on stage in a flash, wowing tons of aggressively cheering crowds? Don't ask me, I have a headache. And I HATE films that use this old tired ploy: somehow when Mae puts on a dark wig and speaks with a French accent no one recognizes her. Huh? Does everyone have stupid written on their foreheads?? In most of Mae West's films there is character development for all the essential roles. In this film this crucial element is missing so I found myself never caring a lick about anyone in the film, especially Mae West's Peaches O'Day. "Every Day's a Holiday" is a far cry from her earlier films. Remember rooting for Tira the lion tamer? And how about Mae masquerading as Sister Annie Alden and become serious about religion in her dramatic masterpiece "Klondike Annie"? And it was sure fun to see her spoof her own sexy movie star persona in "Go West, Young Man."
If you buy the entertainer-becomes-a-crook-reverts-to-entertainer premise and you don't mind a Mae West movie without Mae West saying anything funny or sexy and you like a dull script played like it's the Marx Brothers, you may be able to stomach "Every Day's a Holiday."
PS -- there's a boom mike shadow that appears toward the end of Mae's first visit to Charles Winninger's mansion -- it appears on one of the columns. It's the most interesting part of this film.