Klondike Annie

The period of strict enforcement of the production code, beginning in 1934, was to Mae West what the end of prohibition was to bootleggers. West was a star whose self-penned stories made an art of promiscuity, and whose overt sex appeal made even the subtlest of innuendoes as see-through as a chiffon stocking. She is sometimes pinpointed as the main reason the code-enforcing Hayes Office was established, although it wasn't so much that her pictures were the most risqué out there (something like Baby Face is a far more flagrant flaunting of the code than I'm No Angel and She Done Him Wrong). It was the fact that she was also a box office sensation – and thus a much more potent influence – that made the Legion of Decency moralists take notice.

In this light, Klondike Annie seems to be not so much a watering down of pre-code Mae, but an apology and atonement for her past misdemeanours. While it begins with some of West's familiar man-hopping sass (albeit without so much of her sly wit), half-an-hour or so in the plot is suddenly hijacked by a Christian missionary, from whereon Mae is a reformed woman, as if in direct response to the proclamation of I'm No Angel. This was in a way self-censorship on her part, because as with her earlier pictures West wrote the screenplay, and despite her antics both on and off screen was truly a devout Christian. Luckily this means Ms West still appears in control and enough of her personality has survived intact, even when she's dressed in black and preaching a sermon. It's a testament to her credible acting skills that she manages to pull this off, making Rose Carlton's redemption and unconventional adoption of the moral crusader role a believable one, tweaking her ability to command attention and work a crowd into a slightly new direction.

West also has a very flattering and focused director in Raoul Walsh. Walsh makes his camera placement a slave to Mae, keeping her almost constantly foregrounded, staring hypnotically out at the audience. Take for example the scene where Victor McLaglen prepares breakfast for her, in which we see the table in a fairly standard sideways-on set-up. When Mae comes in Walsh switches to a sharply different angle, purely so that she can enter bearing down upon the camera. Walsh is also blunt in bringing out plot points, making for example Sister Annie's first address to Mae a close-up straight into the camera (a Walsh speciality), to let us know that this is a key moment in the story.

Another odd side-effect here is that without all the usual sexual politics and bed-hopping Klondike Annie actually has a far clearer and more substantial plot than the earliest Mae West pictures, even transitional ones like Belle of the Nineties, which took out the sex but left in the battle-of-the-sexes. But to what purpose this clarity? Klondike Annie may be technically one of the better Mae West pictures, but without her free-spiritedness and playful man-conquering exploits the very heart of the Mae West formula has gone. While the picture served to keep her in work for a few years, it has little of value for those of us in the audience. The production code had not only put a cramp West's style, it had wiped out her box-office appeal in the process.

This is another middling Mae West vehicle: though there's something approximating a plot in its case (involving her taking up the guise of a missionary!), this has the unfortunate effect of producing unwarranted sentimentality – consequently, the star's trademark sauciness gets downplayed – which, frankly, doesn't suit her in the least…or convince us for a second! At least, director Walsh vividly renders the turn-of-the-century atmosphere and changes of locale: we start in Chinatown, where Mae's the kept woman of an Oriental establishment owner, then spend a good deal of time aboard ship with rowdy captain Victor McLaglen – during which the real (and elderly) Sister Annie perishes from a heart attack – and, finally, settle in the titular gold-mining region – where the heroine above all turns the head of a young Mountie (actually after West for the death of her Asian master that occurs off-screen!) even if he believes her to be a pious woman.

Needless to say, West's bubbly personality and smart business sense (acquired via her former capacity of world-renowned torch singer) turns around the mission's formerly pitiful fortunes – which even come to threaten the takings at the local saloon (especially since she's recruited many of the performers there to liven up her own "joint")! I was under the impression that KLONDIKE ANNIE was something like 80 minutes long (the Leslie Halliwell Film Guide even gives the running-time as 83), so that I was surprised when it abruptly ended – by having the star forsake the young career man for experienced lout McLaglen – at a little over 73 minutes in PAL mode (with a bit of research, I was able to determine that Image's presumably long out-of-print R1 DVD actually only ran for 76 minutes).

My only reason of watching this rather trifling Mae West vehicle is that the director is Raoul Walsh. I've never been a big Mae West fan, though I thoroughly liked "She Done Him Wrong" and "I'm No Angel." I had some hopes for "Klondike Annie," but it lamentably turned out one of her dullest efforts. Mae's suggestive one-liners are surprisingly exhausting; her characterization of "the Frisco Doll" is rather fake and unremarkable. Walsh's direction is curiously flat and there's very little of his trademark exuberance to wither the contrived silliness of Mae's script (adapted from her own play "The Frisco Kate").

I saw it back to back with another Mae West movie called "Every Day's a Holiday"(1937). Though Walsh is a vastly superior director than Edward Sutherland, I much prefer that one because it's breezier, funnier, and more enjoyable.

The only good or likable things in "Klondike Annie" are Mae's romantic liaison with the rugged Victor Mclaglen as the rough, grumbling captain of the ship, and the moment when Mae impersonates the Salvation Army missionary. The rest is forgettable

Rose Carlton (Mae West) is known as the San Francisco Doll. She performs at Chan Lo's gambling house in San Francisco, but it's a gilded cage. She escapes to Alaska. Along the way, she befriends Sister Annie Alden. When Annie dies, Rose takes on Annie's identity to hide from her murder charge. Rose decides to continue Annie's goal of saving a failing mission.

Mae West continues to work around the code and maintain her persona. It is difficult. In this movie, she has a saintly streak. The stakes could be raised higher. The officer could start harder and heighten the intensity. There could be more assassination attempts. This has some Mae West humor, but it could have been a bigger thriller.

The inimitable Mae West struts her stuff yet again in this breezy, passable, but lesser Paramount Studio vehicle. Based on her play ("Frisco Kate") and co-credited for the writing here, she is the whole show naturally.

The story, if you care, has Mae playing Rose ("the Frisco Doll") Carlton, an 1890s entertainer who has to take it on the lam after bringing down one of her paramours - not with sly one-liners, but with a knife in the back. She's forced to slum it on a ship headed for the Klondike. With the police breathing down her bodice, she winds up impersonating a Salvation Army missionary (Helen Jerome Eddy), who conveniently dies of a `bad heart attack' while on board. In a change of heart, the sultry Mae, now dressed down in drab, basic black, vows to fulfill the woman's mission and ventures on to reform an Alaskan town full of drunks, prosties and other sinner types with her own revamped style of Bible-thumping. Somehow you feel these unfortunates will never be ENTIRELY saved, but that's never the point anyway. Interspersed throughout are a few typical West songs, notably `I'm an Occidental Woman in an Oriental Mood for Love' decked out in full Oriental regalia, including headgear, which really has to be seen to be believed.

It's always grand entertainment to see the most virile of men falling all over themselves over La West -- reduced to simpering, whimpering fools once they zero in on our gal. This time one of filmdom's most rugged and respected character stars, Victor McLaglan, becomes her prime, buffoonish play toy. McLaglan (who had won an Oscar a year or two before) plays Bull Brackett, a brusque, salty ol' sea captain here, who barks out orders in his best Wallace Beery imitation and roughs up nearly every guy within throwing distance. But watch the big brute turn to pure mush at the first sight of Mae -- sulking, grousing, bumbling, even running into poles, for God's sake. And McLaglan's not the only one. Dashing, doe-eyed Philip Terry's Mountie, McLaglan's chief rival, risks all respect, not to mention his career, in his play for her, while obsessive-compulsive `Oriental' Harold Huber loses much more than that over his fascination with " the pearl of lotus flower.' Ah, yes, in a distinct case of reverse gender discrimination, every man is weak, inept, servile, and just plain putty around dear ol' Mae. Improbable fun...but fun.

And speaking of support roles, nobody has ever been given the chance to steal a Mae West movie, so to mention anyone else in the cast would be a waste of time. By the way, you won't see any pretty dames supporting West either. She wouldn't stand for it. So every other female -- bar girls, suffragettes, society ladies, you name it - are at least 50-70 in age here, and either much heavier than the quite zaftig West or downright ugly. Smart girl that Mae!

Suffice it to say there's never much action in a Mae West movie because the old girl (she was 44 at the time this movie was released) simply can't move in those tight, breath-taking (literally!) outfits she wears. She simply sashays from place to place, plants herself, and lets out a few double entendres. The dramatic action is usually compromised by a series of set poses - lighting a cigarette, filing her nails, primping her platinum-blonde locks, laying carefully on a settee, or shoving some pawing, lovesick puppy away from her camera light. Actually, what you're waiting for anyway are Mae's delicious quips, but, sadly, there are way too few of them in "Klondike Annie", none of those classic lines we all enjoy and remember so well. Methinks those dastardly censors cut out her best lines this time, because there's not a lot of zing in the ones she delivers here. Rumor has it William Randolph Hearst and his newspaper establishment took offense at Mae portraying any kind of religious figure and insisted on immediate congressional action. Whatever.

Raoul Walsh directed this but there is really little directing going on. The narcissistic Mae could never have been considered a director's star. And as for her acting? Well, if Mae were alive today, I'd love to ask her, "What the hell DO you see looking up at the ceiling all the time?" Whatever it is, I'm sure it's better than some of the silliness we're seeing down here.

But Mae is Mae, so what you see is what you get.