Go West Young Man

If you want to know who inspired Lady Gaga and Madonna, just look at Mae West. She stars and wrote the screenplay for this film vehicle of hers. She knew how to market herself in her career. In this film, she played Mavis Arden, a celebrity on her way to Los Angeles where she gets stranded in a small town in middle America. I believe it was Gettysburg. Anyway, she acts rude and offensive when her car breaks down in the small town but she comes back with an apology. Mae West characters are never really vicious or obnoxious. In this film, she is surrounded by great supporting cast of characters. While this film is about her, she doesn't forget the other characters and the storyline about her falling in love with a country aspiring inventor and mechanic. The film may have some issues with storyline and script but it's satisfactory with a surprising ending.

This movie was shown on Australian TV in the mid-'60s and never been seen here since. True, this is not an out-and-out romp like Mae's earlier films but it does have a more subtle comic line about a movie star in small-town America. The scene where Mae is lying down in the hay is surprisingly explicit: she reaches out her arms to Randolph Scott and says: "I love it." She was actually talking about the country life or something but in the context it was pretty strong stuff for 1935. I'm sure this is the movie where she is chauffeur-driven in a fantastic Rolls-Royce town car with "rattan"-work around the rear of the car, rather like Norma Desmond's in Sunset Boulevard. The car would be worth a fortune today. Also featured was the wonderful Elizabeth Patterson as the cynical granny of the house, a characterisation she made her own, and reprised it as late as 1957 in Pal Joey. It's a bit more subtle than Mae's earlier films but it has a certain maturity and a low-key humour as a gentle poke at country folks. The young Randolph Scott is quite a hunk in this too. I quite enjoyed it.

Go West, Young Man is a delightful screwball comedy featuring an unlikely but happily cast trio of Mae West, Warren William, and Randolph Scott. Mae is a glamorous movie star, the idol of millions, stranded in a hick boarding house when her limo breaks down in the sticks. She passes time by putting her fleshy moves on the handsome mechanic, played by Scott, who in 1936 was still very young looking and not yet principally identified as a western star. But the hayseed mechanic is more interested in tinkering with electronic inventions than in either the sultry Mae or his forlorn fiancé (Margaret Perry), while Mae's manipulative and protective press agent William and the fiancé's old maid aunt (Elizabeth Patterson) do all in their considerable conniving powers to put the romance on the skids. They get a lot of help from a herd of wacky local yokels, all ga-ga over glamor queen and all harboring their own ridiculous dreams of getting into the movies.

While Screwball comedy is a genre of elusive definition, Go West, Young Man embodies most of the common elements -- romance all out of whack, a collection of goofy but likable characters, frenetic, sometimes slap-stick action, class satire, and witty, fast-delivery dialog -- all breaking off in unexpected directions, like the baseball pitch the genre is named after. This movie also features a couple of other devices often seen in other screw-ballers -- the hoity-toity dame stranded in the boonies, and the cops being called, usually by mistake, and coming in like gangbusters. Henry Hathaway, a director better known for his outdoor action pictures, brings it all together with style and good humor.

The Mae West phenomenon seems to be rather poorly understood by the modern generation. They just can't fathom how so much fuss could have been made over a plump, middle-aged dame with no class except for low class, and not even very pretty, except in an incredibly cheap way (which, unfortunately, appeals enormously to most of us guys). How could all those men throw themselves at her feet? Well, that's pretty funny. So is sex in general. And that was her whole point! She was a grotesque parody of the sex goddess. Mae wrote most of her own material including the screen play for Go West, Young Man. She satirized everyone, playboys, politicians, country bumpkins, and most of all herself! She does it better than ever in Go West, Young Man, but in this movie it is even funnier than most of her others, because the satire is more gentle. The rubes are made to seem ridiculously funny, yet also very human and likable. And Mae, herself, gets the sharpest barbs. If for no other reason, this movie is worth watching for the hilarious scene of the sullen, portly sex goddess sauntering toward the boarding house steps escorted by a throng of adoring hayseeds and their pigs! That, as with many of the other gags, gives me a chuckle again every time I think of it. Which is the true test of whether a comedy is funny!

Code or no code, Go West, Young Man is still a Mae West movie, but it manages to be good, (almost) clean fun. Top notch Old Hollywood entertainment.

GO WEST YOUNG MAN is a good but yes, toned down comedy from Mae's pre-code days, but still fun to watch and not a waste of time at all.

Mae plays a movie star who stars in romantic drama and Warren William is her press agent who dreams up schemes to keep her from getting married, because her contract says that she cannot get married until 5 years. While they are on their way to Harrisburg Mae's custom-made car stuffed full of cold cream and shampoo breaks down. So, she is stuck in a rural colonial cottage boarding house with yummy Randolph Scott, twittering Alice Brady, and her biggest (and ditziest) fan Isabel Jewell.

While Mae West's acting and dialog was made tamer for the talkies, so was wonderful, handsome, cynical Warren William's, who was one of Warner Bros. top stars in the pre-code era. Warren William used to play ruthless bosses and all out cads, and while his role here is good and he gets to do some sleazy arguing and engineer some tricks on Mae West, GWYM was indeed a big step down for him. It was all because of that awful Satan MET A LADY (1934) which greatly hurt his career. Not to mention the awakening of the film censors by the Legion of Decency.

Elizabeth Patterson gives a great performance as the spunky Aunt Kate, and Isabel Jewell does a wonderful job as energetic, imaginative, movie-crazy Gladys. She does a funny imitation of Marlene Dietrich.

Oh yeah, and Randolph Scott was a total hunk with his "large and sinewy" muscles.

This was another great 1930s film, but since I really like most 30s films, this one was great in a bit of a different way from others, and even other Mae West films. Mae plays an actress who's starring in a romantic thriller at the beginning of this film. Watching it includes young pretty fan (Isabel Jewel) of Mae's film character. Mae gets on stage live after the film. Can hardly imagine it now, how back then there was usually a live show right after the feature. And how audiences would stay seated enjoying the show next. Very few people today would have the patience to stay for a show immediately following a film. And how half the audiences back then usually had a few tears of joy at the end of a film, then everyone clapped. Just another of so many examples how people are so different today in every way.

Mae, after the show, wants to meet a man she's very interested in. Even though this film is post code, she still has a few sorta raunchy lines like "a thrill a day keeps the chill away". Other lines seem a little cleaned up from her lines in her pre code films like in "I'm no angel" and "Goin to town".

As Mae is getting ready for her date, her agent, Waren William tries very hard to stop her, but Mae doesn't listen. On her date, Waren pulls on sneaky act on her. He invites a truckload of press and news crew to horn in on the date. Mae's reaction is very amusing. That's another thing I love about Mae is that she never gets really angry or bent out of shape, she just gets even and seems to have a lot of fun doing so. Mae then wants to travel across country to meet a certain someone. On route, her Rolls Royce breaks down, and her driver gets a couple of locals just ahead of them to hook up to the Royce and pull it down the little country road. A quirky little scene there how the guys pulling the car shout out about a film star being in the Royce, and the passerbyers each making amusing comments back while Mae's rolling her eyes. Then they get to the quaint little country boarding house. There are Elizabeth Patterson as the slightly elderly owner, Gladys as a sweet young romantic, and Isabel Jewel, the star struck fan from the theater. Isabel is ecstatic by Mae being there. Gladys and Elizabeth try to make Mae feel very welcome. Mae doesn't want to stay there at first, until she sees strong Randolph Scott lifting the side of a car. The two of them hit it off, take a country walk together while getting more acquainted, and a nice moment of budding romance while Mae lays back into a haystack. I'll stop there. Get the film. Its hard to find a lot of old 30s and 40s films in stores now, but you can order them on a Amazon.com like I did. Or you can wait until they show it on TCM.