Mae West's Babe Gordon is a rare character in that she does basically what she wants. No Pandora's Box. No Thelma and Louise, no Madame Bovary, no Anna Karenina, more like The Last Seduction, the entertaining 1994 neo-noir movie starring Linda Fiorentino. In other words, instead of "independent woman gets punished for her social transgressions," "independent woman lives free and gets away with it." Why aren't there more of these kinds of characters? It's refreshing.
One other thing to note about Babe Gordon / The Constant Sinner (1930/1931). A lot of the 1920s dialogue and setup will seem like right out of a movie from the 1930s and 1940s -- somewhat hard-boiled and cornball. But the thing is, talkie films didn't even begin until The Jazz Singer (1927), so we might have to turn back to stage productions and vaudeville to locate the more stagey influences on written style and manner. This would make sense, given that Mae West (1893-1980) performed in plays and vaudeville-type romps prior to becoming a playwright, and then a novelist -- well before taking to the big screen herself in 1932.
Photo credit: Archives of the L.A. Times via Wikimedia Commons, dating to around the time of Babe Gordon / The Constant Sinner's publication.
Today's Rune: Signals.
1 comment:
I agree with you, those types of characters are refreshing and there should be more of them. She is beyond beautiful.
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