Klondike Annie

Many critics consider this to be Mae West's best film, it certainly does have elements in it that are missing from her other creations, and though she doesn't say "Come up and see me some time" here, some of her catchphrases are present: "Give a man a free hand and he'll try to put it all over you" and "Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before".

The tale is set in the naughty nineties, a favourite period for West, in the Yukon Valley, where bad girl West flees after murdering her lover, and takes the place of a recently dead missionary. She is then quite a shock to the Alaskan community, as she staits to give sermons from the pulpit. This so incensed the ontemporary critics that one of them declared that the film was "unfit to be shown", and the censors cut out some of the jucier scenes. Apparently, ridiculing religion just wasn't on.

The new element that West introduced here went largely unnoticed by the audiences of the day: compared with her earlier characters, the West of Klondike Annie seems so much more intelligent, and serious with it. West had introduced some social comment, and given her character a conscience: but the songs and gags are present in just a great a number as before.

Her co-star is craggy yet lovable Victor McLaglen, in a thankless role unworthy of his talents - it really is West's show all the way - but his presence adds to the comedy.

Victor: "I can always tell a lady."
Mae: "Yeah? What do you tell 'em"

Review by Martin Hunt
Taken from EUFS Programme 1993-94