Soy una dama

Reviewing the iconic Mae West feels like an exercise in futility. Today's audiences either "buy into" her supremely confident premise and enjoy her oeuvre, or reject her entire egotistic supposition and persona in general.

Going' to Town is the first West vehicle made under the Production Code, and it does somewhat pale in comparison to her earlier films. But still, what we find here contains a great deal to enjoy, even with the buxom star now somewhat muzzled and constrained. Here she is Cleo Borden (I love her character names every time!), an "on-the-level" saloon hall girl who inherits a windfall and attempts to go legit in high society in the Hamptons. Jealous and snooty Marjorie Gateson does everything in her power to stand in her way -- a plot contrivance familiar to West fans.

Firstly, Mae West always seemed to consider the guys in her audience, and here the film starts with an exciting action sequence featuring a chase on horseback with guns blazing. It plays more like something from a George O'Brien oater -- a neat and surprising way to open the proceedings actually. Before long the scene has shifted to Buenos Aires, where the story treats us to an actual horse race that's very nicely filmed in an extremely fast pace.

But the movie's plotting seems a tad overwrought, with perhaps a few too many admirers competing for both West's attentions and meager screen time. But then, fans of outrageous Hollywood fashion can feast their eyes on the haute couture that clothes the corseted blond star. And it certainly does add to the humor having a full-figured actress dominating the proceedings, and Mae West expertly keeps all eyes focused on her abundant charms -- if only to ascertain the reasons behind her supreme confidence.

So, everyone, get a load of Mae West as she rolls her eyes, smokes cigarettes, sings a few songs, steamrolls over her entire supporting cast, and flirts with every man around. That makes some outlandish entertainment that's not to be underestimated even today.

*** out of *****

This film is really a Mae West vehicle and you can see how she inspired today's stars like Madonna and even Lady Gaga with her dazzling outfits and costumes. Mae West had a style like nobody else and was incredibly talented besides her looks. She was a screenwriter who developed her own projects in order to suit her. In this film, she plays a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who ends up from rags to riches. Along the way, she wants high society's acceptance even of her bawdy behavior and attitudes. Her character might be ill-bred, ill-mannered, and raunchy with jokes but she's entertaining and talented with her singing voice. I wonder if it was her real voice. She's going to climb high society even if it means doing it her way. Mae West is one of the great movie stars during the Great Depression and we can see why people flocked to see her films.

This was the first Mae West movie to appear after the introduction of the Production Code the year before and, given the generally held belief that this factor harmed her successive films, I was expecting to be let down by this one; indeed, while rarely scaling the heights of her best work, I found it to be a very engaging and entertaining vehicle with a fair amount of good lines.

Amusingly, this film – with the word “town” in its title – starts out way out West while West’s GO WEST YOUNG MAN (1936) starts out in a rural setting and goes rustic gradually! Interestingly enough, it features a vivid horse-racing sequence and another hilarious vignette in which West dabbles in opera singing: playing Delilah (“the only woman barber who made good”), she is prone to call out to her Samson, “Come ‘ere, Sammy!”; it’s worth mentioning here that The Marx Brothers also lampooned just these very diverse subjects for their first two big-budget MGM extravaganzas!

The plot is quite busy, especially for a 70 minute movie, with a handful of besotted males vying for the hand of wealthy oil tycoon West (who marries – and is subsequently widowed – twice during the course of the film, even if she is clearly chasing after her no-nonsense British employee Paul Cavanagh who is really an aristocrat!). Initially, I thought that Cavanagh was a curious choice for her leading man but, ultimately, he acquits himself rather well under the circumstances, and Gilbert Emery is a welcome familiar face as West’s Pygmalion (once she decides to take on the upper crust of society in her bid to win Cavanagh’s affections); incidentally, this portion of the film bears more than a passing resemblance to George Raft’s predicament in Mae West’s debut feature, NIGHT AFTER NIGHT (1932)!

I must confess to a little bias here, I just love Mae West so you won't get an objective assessment of Goin' to Town from me.

Mae is pleasingly plump in this one, an unlikely sex goddess though it must be remembered that she was about forty before she made a movie. Still, the suitors crowd around her, especially in the Race Track sequence.

Goin' to Town seems to be a sort of modern-day Western with Mae getting around in a car as well as on a horse but she wears the same elaborate Victorian gowns as she did in Belle of the Nineties.

The plot is well summed up elsewhere; Mae is engaged to Buck Gonzales who is shot while rustling cattle. A lawyer advises her that she is entitled to his estate since she agreed to marry him. `You did consent, didn't you?' Mae: `Certainly did - twice!' Another line capable of a risqué interpretation is when Buck says `I've been thinking about you a lot lately' Mae replies `You must be tired'

Wonderful entertainment, she even warbles agreeably in the Samson and Delilah scenes and how about that walk? The word sashay was invented for her. No wonder there were strong rumours that Mae was a female impersonator. She describes her self as `a good woman for a bad man' and later `I'm a woman of very few words but lots of action' (she learnt Spanish while working in Tijuana!)

Goin' to Town is not her best film (for me - She Done Him Wrong) but I thoroughly enjoy it just the same.

In Going' To Town Mae West enacts her own version of the Horatio Alger story. She rises from dance hall queen, to millionaire, to high society, and finally to a title. Mae starts this rise by being a 'good woman to a bad man'.

The bad man is Fred Kohler who mixed cattle rustling with a lot of legitimate money and pays the ultimate price. He leaves everything to his fiancé Mae West. It's the beginning of her rise.

All the time she's got her eye fixed on Englishman Paul Cavanaugh who she knows as the engineer drilling for oil on Kohler's and now her property. She doesn't know at first he's an heir to a title, but she finds out soon enough.

Mae really comes into her own in this film. In previous films she had George Raft and Cary Grant twice as leading men. Going' To Town is a film she carries all by herself.

Cavanaugh is the film's weakness. Not a strong enough personality to be a lead, one can't figure out why Mae's so set on him. Someone like Leslie Howard would have really given that part some character. And what a team that would have been.

Still this film is all Mae West. And that's all you need.