Mae West is so great and the film is so much better once you know she wrote Diamond Lil the play the film is based on. All of her character’s writing is so sharp and biting. Her delivery and the words she chooses to use are so deeply tattooed into our collective consciousness that it is great seeing it at the height of its powers. It is so fascinating to watch Cary Grant so early in his career. He has the same face and yet its a baby face, it is hard to explain. Rochelle Hudson was also really good in the short time she is on screen. I wish she was in the film more — but no she is shipped off into human trafficking, which is so strange to have something this super dark in this comedy film especially in 1933. There are such great moments in this, like when Lou goes to the prison and knows everyone there. Still the sheer amount of men that she surrounds her with became a little too much. It’s not even a joke, its just a lot of characters. It feels like it would have played better in its own time and on the stage. I don’t understand the controversy with the title of the original play and why the Hayes Code had an issues with the diamonds. It’s something so in the early 20th century that I can’t understand it.
