Mae West In Hollywood 1932-1943 (Indicator)

[dig311dug]

I wish kino would've put out a set like this instead of individual releases...
I guess they still could.

[baloobas]

Currently £48.44 on Amazon, the lowest price it’s been so far.

[rapta]

Tempted, but it might be £40 or less in the next Indicator sale...

[filmlover22]

that is exactly what I am hoping for. A reduction in the next sale..

[Nori]

Originally Posted by Indicator

Anyway, about the Mae West box...

Can we get a Greta Garbo box set next? Would be a perfect follow up to the Dietrich and West sets in my opinion.

[AnnThrope]

Originally Posted by Nori

Can we get a Greta Garbo box set next? Would be a perfect follow up to the Dietrich and West sets in my opinion.

Marvellous idea.
I think only Grand Hotel's come out on blu-ray in the UK - there was a steelbook years and years ago.
Only one I'm aware of, I think.

Or... failing that...
Just more Dietrich!

marlene.jpg

[filmlover22]

Actually. Between Indicator, Kino and BFI I think most of her movies are already available on bluray.

How about a Jean Harlow set?

[AnnThrope]

Originally Posted by filmlover22

Actually. Between Indicator, Kino and BFI I think most of her movies are already available on bluray.

How about a Jean Harlow set?

Yes, but the ones that are on Kino (which I've all got) I'd buy them all again if released here in the UK by Indicator (or someone else reputable).

And they're not all available, not by a long chalk.
What about Knight Without Armour?

Rancho Notorious too. Lang and Dietrich. Why isn't that out on blu?
(and don't say "Because it's not very good". Lol)

[dressedtokill]

Originally Posted by filmlover22

Actually. Between Indicator, Kino and BFI I think most of her movies are already available on bluray.

How about a Jean Harlow set?

As great as Harlow set would be, that would have to come from Warner. They have the rights to most, if not all of her films.

[NeilZ]

Wouldn’t a Rita Hayworth set be more feasible? If Mill Creek was able to license a bunch of the movies for a US set I’d think maybe there’s a chance Indicator could too.

Indicator already has a few of her movies (including a few in the noir sets I believe). They could be repackaged in a box similar to the Marlene Dietrich/ Mae West format.

Even if it were a less complete box than the Mill Creek, due to Indicator’s superior encodes and packaging I for one would preorder such a box day 1.


I’d have loved a Greta Garbo though, but yeah Warner has the bulk of them.

[MillyD]

I got the box set in the recent sale, was hoping would be a little cheaper still to be honest.
It was a blind buy because thought would be historically significant, she was probably the biggest box office draw in the US, in the early thirties. Think there is a fair chance the films will be like Gracie Field ones which were extraordinarily popular in UK before the war. For modern tastes, or at least me, the humour doesn't date well, and have feeling there was something, umm unique about that decade for comedy taste.
Anyway, which film would people recommend as best in the set?

[filmlover22]

A little cheaper for 10 films, a book, and a poster?
This set cost me $40 usd, including shipping.
OK.

Fwiw, Mae West was one of a kind. That was her claim to fame and also her downfall. She wasn't able to adapt to anything else. When the the public got tired of her act, her career was over.

Her films all play off the same formula. Me? I loved it. But if you don't like one film, the there is a high probability, IMHO, that you won't like the others. She is definitely an acquired taste.

That being said. I would start with the two with Cary Grant.

[CompleteCount]

My favourite MW quote:

"I'm the kind of gal who works for Paramount by day, and Fox all night..."

[sjt]

Originally Posted by CompleteCount

My favourite MW quote:

"I'm the kind of gal who works for Paramount by day, and Fox all night..."

Alas from one of the only two of her films not included in the Indicator box, the utterly egregious Sextette, a film aiming for high camp but achieving only low crap (witness the closing scene, with poor, 31-year-old Timothy Dalton humping the 85-year-old West whilst she rolls her eyes and utters the line "oh, the British are coming").

The really interesting Mae West film still missing in action is Myra Breckenridge, a complete one-off decades ahead of its cheerfully transgender times and containing the only remotely convincing performance by the otherwise leaden and pneumatic Raquel Squelch as the titular hero/ine. But that was one Mae evidently made at night - for Fox - and thus alas hardly comprising an exploitable part of the Maushaus's spandex-'n-sci-fi strategy for world domination...

She was, by the way, genuinely witty in propria persona: hauled up in court on a morals charge in the 1930s on account of Sextette's original stage show, she was admonished by the judge for her witness box behaviour: "Miss West, are you trying to show contempt for this court?". To which she instantly replied "O judge, I'm trying so hard not to". She gets my vote. It's best to think of her as essentially a drag act - La Squelch was convinced she was actually a man - with a prowling, slowly sashaying walk made even more famous by an early admirer whose real name was Marion Morrison, but became better known as John Wayne...

[floor pie]

Originally Posted by sjt

(witness the closing scene, with poor, 31-year-old Timothy Dalton humping the 85-year-old West whilst she rolls her eyes and utters the line "oh, the British are coming")

[Show spoiler]I'm sold.

[Abdrewes]

I've been digging into the Mae films I haven't seen via this set and I'm super impressed so far. I initially held out on it last fall because Kino had many of these available on their own disc, but now that I'm watching them there's really no reason I should've been apprehensive. The encoding looks great; this is far from a Mill Creek affair. I still own Kino's Night After Night & Every Day's a Holiday, so I might just A-B them one of these days for comparison, but I doubt I'll find anything significant.

[MillyD]

Watched "She done in wrong" last night. Not a lot of subtlety in the dialog or anything really but very entertaining. Mae West's jazz singing wasn't bad either.

[CrockettandTubbs]

'Mae West: Dirty Blonde' documentary is on Sky Arts on Tuesday 29th November (9 - 10.15pm).

[gap]

Originally Posted by MillyD

Watched "She done in wrong" last night. Not a lot of subtlety in the dialog or anything really but very entertaining. Mae West's jazz singing wasn't bad either.

I watched this for the first time this weekend too. Nothing special really, but Mae West has serious presence - just magnetic. The film itself is a bit disappointing, by the time it all starts to come together, it ends.