I'M NO ANGEL,

is a film dating back to 1933, starring Mae West.Who Mae was, most of you reading this, would not know,she lived well before your time and very likely before your parents'time. I first learnt about Hollywood when I came to England and fell in love line ,hook and sinker with all that it entailed. In this film Mae plays a night-club singer,well,more a swinger,but who is quibbling,called Tira. The men fall all over her and rightly so, she is an adorable creature, not beautiful,not even pretty, in my opinion,cannot act, cannot dance, maybe cannot even sing, with someone else dubbing her in the film. But can she walk! My goodness,can she! Today her swagger would be insured for a million dollars. I remember seeing the film years and years and years ago, but only now do I appreciate the charm,the wit. In various dictionaries of the English language [the ships have them all and I love just browsing through,looking for nothing in particular] you will find under her name amusing anecdotes. And the best ones are in this film:Beulah,peel me a grape, she says to her maid. I am quick in a slow way, she tells someone else. When I am good, I am very good,when I am bad, I am better, she tells,I think,Jack Clayton, played by Carry Grant of all people,looking so very young, probably his first major role. And when Beulah says - you are a one man woman, she responds - one man at a time. It is not the wit in the films that makes her so appealing, this all had been written for her by others, I presume, it is the way she says it. But she was quite priceless in real life,too.One of the first actresses, if not the very first, to realize the value of dairies. Keep a diary,one day it keeps you, she once quipped. How very true. Come up, and see me sometime-is one of her most repeated quotes. Mae had brought so much joy to people's lives when times where hard in the thirties. And now to me,too.