Go West Young Man

Hollywood star Mavis Arden has a clause in her contract prohibiting her from marrying for five years. So her press agent Morgan worries about her secret dinner with a congressional candidate and alerts the press, hoping to scare off her beau with a scandal. Their next assignation is thwarted when Mavis’ Rolls Royce breaks down on tour. She and Morgan end up in a rural boarding house, where Mavis turns her lustful eyes on the hunky car mechanic. And like the character she most recently played in “Drifting Lady”, she breaks her rival’s heart. But unlike in the film-within-a-film, real life proffers up a happy ending … In this comedy set in the film industry, the press agent figure functions as a kind of censor-on-the-hoof for his charge, and Mae West uses that construct to shake off all constraints on her erotic appeal. In both word and deed, Mavis defies any attempts to tame her promiscuous onscreen persona into the well-burnished image of a studio star. A long speech she is seemingly ordered to give, pleading for more marriages, is belied by the concise closing line spoken by the “Drifting Lady” – “men are my life”. (Berlinale)