Every Day's a Holiday

EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY (Paramount, 1937), directed by A. Edward Sutherland, stars Mae West (who also wrote the screenplay), making her eighth and final screen appearance for Paramount. In spite of its most lavish scale production, with costumes designed by Schiaparelli, a fine assortment of veteran character actors, including Charles Butterworth, Charles Winninger, Walter Catlett and Herman Bing (do take notice that Mae West is the only female listed in the cast), and a good but not entirely memorable score, EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY reportedly did poorly at the box office when released in theaters during the Christmas season of 1937. Whether or not goodness of the story had anything to do with it, EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY ranks as Mae West's "cleanest" movie to date. Returning to the her favorite turn-of-the-century setting, it does provide some added bonuses, the most noted being having West masquerading as the dark-haired French entertainer named Mademoiselle Fifi.

The opening cast and credits features a festive background of fireworks before the story gets underway. The setting: New York City. The time: New Year's Eve, December 31, 1899. The central character: Peaches O'Day (Mae West), a confidence woman with a whole lot of confidence working on the wrong side of the law with 25 arrests to her record and no convictions. After the initial five minutes consisting of production number and the discussion involving Peaches between the corrupt Inspector "Honest John" Quade (Lloyd Nolan), ("he's so crooked he uses a cork-screw for a ruler"), and the honest law abiding Captain Jim McCarey (Edmund Lowe), Peaches makes her introduction riding on her horse and buggy cab across the Brooklyn Bridge presenting herself to the droll Larmadou Graves (Charles Butterworth), riding on his "horseless carriage," with her calling card: "Peaches O'Day, RSVP." Next scene finds her selling the Brooklyn Bridge to a Fritz Krausmeyer (Herman Bing) for $200, with bill of sale reading "One bridge in good condition." Aside from landing herself in trouble with the law ("I may crack a law, but I ain't never broke one") by cheating suckers, Peaches is admired by both Quade and McCarey. She prefers McCarey because he arrests her only to dismiss her case after he refunds the money to those she had cheated, particularly the latest buyer of the Brooklyn Bridge. Through Graves, Peaches later wins her friendship with his employer, Van Reighle Van Pelton Van Doon (Charles Winninger), an aristocrat who hasn't loved nor trusted a woman in 25 years, yet after seeing Peaches, becomes interested in her within 25 seconds. Later, Peaches is offered the leading role in an upcoming variety show, with Van Doon as her backer. Because she is ordered to leave town by Quade, "Nifty" Bailey (Walter Catlett), the show's producer, comes up with an idea by having Peaches leave New York and return later, reportedly from Boston, wearing a black wig disguised as a French entertainer, Mademoiselle Fifi. The amusement of the story picks up when Fifi becomes the toast of New York, with both John Quade (who fails to recognize her) and Jim McCarey (who sees through her disguise) not only trying to win her affections, but later to win an upcoming 1900 election as mayor of New York City.

Edmund Lowe, a fine actor with a distinctive voice, performs his task well as Mae West's leading man, either in the romancing department as well as using his fists on abductors trying to prevent him from attending his election by midnight, and on the corrupt Quade himself. Lloyd Nolan, a resident actor of numerous Paramount programmers during the late 1930s where his divers ability ranged from playing good guys or gangsters, is perfectly cast in a rare comedic role as the corrupt police inspector.

The musical numbers presented in the completed print includes: "Flutter By, Little Butterfly" (by Sam Coslow/performed by Irving Bacon, John "Skins" Miller, Allan Rogers and Otto Fries as the quartet, with chorus girls dressed as butterflies flying over the stage); "Mademoiselle Fifi" (by Sam Coslow/ sung by Mae West and all-male chorus); "Vote for McCarey," "Jubilee" (by Stanley Adams and Hoagy Carmichael/ sung by Louis Armstrong); and "Vote for McCarey" (reprise). Although the title song, "Every Day's a Holiday" is listed in the opening credits (by Sam Coslow and Barry Trivers), it is only heard as instrumental background music, with another "Along the Broadway Trail" which ended up on the cutting room floor. The legendary Louis Armstrong, seen briefly as a street cleaner, introduces the song "Jubilee" while parading down the street along with other street cleaners during the election rally. Mae West participates in this number with her sexy method of drum playing.

EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY was distributed on video cassette in 1992-93 by MCA Home Video to commemorate the centennial birth of Mae West, with an added bonus of a theatrical trailer preceding the feature presentation. Out of circulation on the television markets since the 1970s, it did get cable TV exposure in the early 1990s on the Comedy Channel.

While there's no such holiday as "Mae Day" honoring the legend of Mae West, EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY, which may not be high art, does include enough bright spots that make this one enjoyable. It may have marked the end of an era along with the closing chapter to West's association with Paramount, but not the end of the Mae West legacy. (**1/2)

This is not the worst film of Mae West's career (MYRA BRECKENRIDGE and SEXTETTE share that position), but it is not one of her best films. She is saddled with the wrong performer as her leading man. Edmund Lowe was a decent actor, but not one to set the world on fire. It is significant that his pairing with Victor MacLaglan in a series of films starting with the silent film version of WHAT PRICE GLORY was what he was best recalled for - so that Mike Todd gave the two a joint cameo in AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. If his role had been played by the villain of the film, Lloyd Nolan (one of the best character actors in Hollywood history) the film would have been better. Still Nolan is able to give it some mileage. It needs it. West is good (selling the Brooklyn Bridge to Herman Bing and cutting a hole into the window of a jewelry shop by doing a silhouette using a typically dense Charles Butterworth). Butterworth was still capable of his punctuating style of hesitant "accidental" humor. As one of the three backers of the honest Lowe against the crooked Nolan in a Mayoral campaign, he is ably assisted by Walter Catlett and Charles Winninger. Their best moment is when, to protect Lowe, they try to drug him and only succeed in drugging themselves.

There are not many films dealing with 19th Century New York City politics (most of which was quite corrupt - usually due to Tammany Hall). The most recent one is Martin Scorsese's THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, which gives a nearly correct view of the depth of corruption, but makes the mistake of making Boss Tweed an ally of a gangster (Daniel Day Lewis) based on Bill "the Butcher" Poole. Bill Poole (like Lewis) was a "know-nothing" - he hated immigrants, especially those from Ireland who were Catholics. Tweed actually was so pragmatic a political genius that he built his political machine on the Irish and other immigrant groups. He would never have worked with Poole and his friends.

Besides THE GANGS OF NEW YORK there is UP IN CENTRAL PARK (wherein Tweed is played by an elegant Vincent Price, not by a heavy set actor). And that would seem to be it. EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY is the only other notable film dealing with mayoralty politics, and West does try to show how questionable it was. Nolan seems to be backed by the party machine, and Lowe is the honest outsider. There were a few honest mayors who tried to reform the city. Most are forgotten today (William Havemeyer, Edward Cooper, Abram Hewitt, William R. Grace, Seth Low). But then most New York City mayors are forgotten except by historians. Aside from Fiorello LaGuardia and Rudy Giuliani (both of whom left a deep imprint on their times - Giuliani due to 9/11 actually more than his policies) most of the 20th Century mayors are forgotten. Only one (the corrupt but likable Jimmy Walker) merited a movie - BEAU JAMES. LaGuardia did become the subject of a good musical (FIORELLO) but it was never filmed. So one has to do with just the three movies mentioned earlier.

Nolan's McQuade is the corrupt (if smart) Chief of Police. Actually no Police Chief ran for Mayor in 19th Century New York City. But West, and whoever else helped with the script, may have been thinking of a series of police scandals in the 1890s, leading to the Lexow Committee hearings. The most notorious casualty from this was the great Chief of Detectives, Captain Thomas Byrnes. Byrnes (the inventor of "the Rogues' Gallery") was a tough, no nonsense police officer of the old school - civil liberties meant little to him in cracking cases. But he was forced into retirement because he took bribes (mostly stock gifts and tips) from Wall Street figures. Byrnes made sure the work atmosphere of Wall Street was not interrupted by thieves (he set up a "warning line" south of which was unhealthy for any pickpockets or thieves to be traveling without any legal reason). The stock gifts and tips were in gratitude for what he had done.

The film helps capture of the period, but it is meant as a harmless comic entertainment. So it can't be too deep or perceptive of the actuality. Still it is a glimpse at it.

This movie is too disjointed to be good. In my view, the only thing going for it is Lloyd Nolan, the classic Hollywood MD. How many real doctors dreamed of imitating Lloyd Nolan's probity? So, it's a scream to see Nolan play a high-strung, wheeler-dealer, police chief.

True, Louis Armstrong does a cameo. He plays a trumpet, wears a marching costume and says nothing.

Mae West "wrote" the script and so there are basically no other women in the movie. Her double-entendres were too tired by the time this movie was made. But Mae West certainly knows how to wear a hat, and fill out her extravagant costumes.

Once again in her favorite era, the Gay Nineties (that is, the end of it: New Year's Eve, 1899), Mae West looks perfectly comfortable and swell - and in her element: as a small-time crook, 'selling' the Brooklyn Bridge to strangers... Police Chief 'Honest John Quade', who's also running for mayor, is obsessed by the idea of getting her arrested at last - because she had the 'impudence' to turn the crooked politician down. But the 'flatfoot' (as Mae alias 'Peaches O'Day' calls her 'special friends' from the New York police force) McCarey, who's assigned to the case, just 'isn't able' to get her - because he's in love with her and always lets her get away...

But finally, he HAS to do his duty: he tells her unmistakeably that she's got to leave town. 'Peaches', though, has other plans which she works out at a crazy New Year's Eve party in the famous, renowned old 'Rector's Restaurant' with a new acquaintance of hers - a butler and his rich master, who 'hates women'... until he sees Peaches, of course! So, together with her 'manager', they decide that she'll actually leave for Boston - and return, with a black wig and a French accent, as a famous French singer for whom they'll put up a big show...

Although, of course, by 1937 the Production Code showed no mercy anymore ESPECIALLY with Mae West's well-known 'dubious' scripts, and "Every Day's a Holiday" looks a lot tamer than her pre-Code movies, it's still a VERY enjoyable piece of entertainment, with an exceptionally good cast, a quite nice and clever story, nostalgic song numbers (Mae sings not only with a lovely French accent, but also in perfect French!), and generally a lively, inventive comedy you can just watch over and over again - Hollywood nostalgia at its very best!

This lesser-known Paramount frolic, directed by Edward Sutherland, is one of Mae West's funniest and breeziest vehicles in her late period. It turned out to be her last Paramount picture, from her own solidly crafted screenplay. I had the opportunity of watching it recently along with another West movie called "Klondike Annie"(1936), directed by Raoul Walsh. Though Walsh is a vastly superior director than Sutherland, I much prefer this one to "Klondike Annie."

Set in the 1890s New York, Mae delightfully plays Peaches O'Day, a notorious confidence woman who sells the Brooklyn Bridge and flees the city while the police are looking for her capture. She later returns disguising as a hilariously droll French singer, Madamoiselle Fifi. Then she promotes the city's election candidate Capt.McCarey (Edmund Lowe), who also plays the good cop tracking down the corrupt police chief (Lloyd Nolan). Mae is aided by uniformly fine supporting players: Charles Winninger, Herman Bing, Charles Butterworth, Chester Conklin, and Louis Armstrong as the musical street cleaner.

Mae's suggestive one-liners are sparkling and fresh, especially the moment when she impersonates the French dame. Sutherland's unpretentious direction flows breezily through several hugely entertaining moments.

Pleasant and thoroughly enjoyable, "Every Day's Holiday" is must viewing for Mae West fans or anyone looking for harmless, pleasurable escape.