For many years, I've watched an old TV copy of this film and thoroughly enjoyed it. When I saw that it had been released on Blu-ray, I immediately bought it, hoping the new version might contain the long-lost scenes cut by censors. Alas, those scenes remain lost. But the print is gorgeous, and the sound is better than ever.
KLONDIKE ANNIE is a fascinating treatise on the power and mechanics of religion in America of the Thirties, written and performed by the great screen goddess of the Depression, Mae West. Having already commented in her previous films, through her medium of sex comedies, on Hollywood, the New York society scene, and small town culture, here West examines organized religion as just another form of Show Business. (And yes, she also finds some screen time to kiss and cuddle with two very virile men.)
In the Hollywood of her time, two powerful competing Abrahamic cults controlled the motion picture industry: The strict patriarchal culture of east European Jews dominated the studio system, and the monstrously corrupt Catholicism of the ascending east-coast American church controlled censorship. West, rejecting the temptation to directly criticize either cult, instead strips down the business of modern religion to its bare bones and puts it on display: Manipulation and self-enrichment achieved through ignorant superstition, passionate emotion, and above all else, human crowd power dynamics.
Of course, West is far too canny to arouse the ire of any one religious cult by using its name and iconography, and so the 'brand' of religion she presents is called the Settlement House, a workable substitute for the Salvation Army. West's protagonist is a professional singer named Rose Carlton, a shady character known as The San Francisco Doll. After performing a number for the customers of the man who is 'keeping her', Carlton goes on the lam from the San Francisco cops aboard a ship bound for Nome, Alaska, during the 1890s gold rush. (The actual seven minute scene in which she kills her captor in self-defense was cut by the censors.)
Onboard the Java Maid, Rose encounters Captain Bull Bracket, played by Victor McLaglen, as well as Sister Annie Alden, played by Helen Jerome Eddy. Annie is a practitioner of the Settlement House, a sort of temperance league/self-help group which spells God with two o's. While fending off McLaglen's impressive attempts to 'rassle her', Carlton makes friends with the female reformer. Initially skeptical of one she sees as a do-gooder, Carlton is soon won over by Annie's genuine concern, kindness, and humanity. When the reformer dies of a heart attack at sea, Carlton, desperate to shake the cops, switches places with her, and thus Klondike Annie is born.
West could have played Annie as a hardened cynic simply out to make a buck, and indeed this is approach Carlton's former associates are all expecting. Fanny Radler (played by the great Esther Howard), the madam operating the 'dance hall' where the miners lose all their money, is rocked back on her heels when Carlton, as Annie, confronts her and demands she serve a better cause: "I speak your language," Carlton growls in West's signature nasal tones. "You'll do what I tell you, if you know what's good for you," she threatens, strong-arming the shadier performers into helping out at the Settlement House. West draws an equal sign in the air between the hookers, their piano players and bartenders, and the ineffective missionaries and reformers at Settlement House. The only difference is the degree of fun offered for sale. Everyone, including the audience, assumes Carlton's Sister Annie act is just a con job.
But what they fail to appreciate is the real sense of obligation Carlton now feels toward the real Sister Annie, who offered the former prostitute friendship and compassion instead of judgement and condemnation. This genuine caring has transformed The Doll for the better. It's one thing to shake down suckers for their cash, whether in a bar or in a church: it's quite another make a true convert. It is this bond of real sisterhood that has converted Carlton, and which galvanizes the woman as she quickly takes the dirty mining town by storm.
At the center of the film is an absolutely perfect extended scene set in the Settlement House, in which Mae assumes the mantle of that most peculiarly American creature, the tent revivalist. Crafty performer that she is, Rose Carlton knows that the only way to juice up the impact of the poorly-attended Settlement House meetings is, literally, to pack the house. This leads to an amusing scene in which Victor McLaglen literally throws and pushes people through the doors of the modestly-sized building, quickly resulting in a capacity crowd.
And that's when the magic happens.
Every performer, whether preacher, politician, singer, cheer leading team or speaker, knows that there is no substitute for the synergy of a tightly-packed human audience. And when West as Carlton as Annie takes the stage, without colored lights, crosses, robes, glitz, or any of the other trappings of formal religion, the magic happens once more. Every performer knows the undeniable power of the audience: every great performer knows instinctively how to unite her audience into a single mighty entity, and then take wing, bringing us along. In the capacity crowd of miners, hookers, and sundry other riff raff, West's Sister Annie character preaches a fiery sermon on the wages of sin, the evils of drunkenness, and the inevitable toll of dissipation. In this scene West fuses song, movement and oratory in the best tradition of southern Black Baptists and other performance-based religions, and her acting and singing is brilliant. Such is the power in the scene that you can see West herself deeply affected by the salvation of her targets.
But, alas, the police are still on her trail, and closing in. The dramatic irony of West's performance quickly escalates as she effortlessly, simultaneously, portrays both the ruthless floozy and the fire-breathing evangelist, switching back and forth sometimes within a single line. Using all the skills of the San Francisco Doll, Carlton makes Annie's mission a roaring success. The tension in her tightrope act only deepens as the danger of exposure and capture by the police grows, and we expect West's character to abandon her Annie act in order to save her own skin. Instead, Carlton commits more fully to her mission of redemption and repayment of the debt she owes Sister Annie, so much so that when the simple miners are inevitably moved to redemption, we also are swept away for a moment, experiencing the undeniable power of West/Carlton's whole-hearted embrace of preaching as another aspect of Show Business. For it is West's own thrilling headlong commitment to preaching that captivates and moves us, rather than the Settlement House's simple message of 'Do Better'.
In the end, Mae West gives us a deep insight into the real power of any and all religions. It's not the silly and dodgy dogmas that each man-made faith invents that can transform lives: it's the one-on-one contact of people who care about people, combined with the transformative magic of a great performer connecting with a packed house.
Others here have commented on the sickening censorship of the film: the Catholic priests in charge of enforcing the Hays code removed the entire scene depicting her murder in self-defense, known to us now only through internal references in the script. The Catholic church, the single largest patriarchal organization on the planet, could never allow the sympathetic depiction of a woman who defies, escapes and kills her male oppressor. The Salvation Army also demanded a scene be cut, when Carlton trades places with the dead Alden. They objected, not to the depiction of their cult as a bandwagon fund raising con, but rather to the woman's corpse being dressed up to look like an entertainer. Go figure.
What these censors left intact is West's display of the bare-fanged struggle at the heart of religion, between personal piety and the Show Business ethic that demands payment for entertainment. Far more damning than Carlton's censored murder scene is West's conclusion that all religious power ultimately comes down to personal contact and sweat equity, and that every sermon in every church is just another show.
KLONDIKE ANNIE is a fascinating treatise on the power and mechanics of religion in America of the Thirties, written and performed by the great screen goddess of the Depression, Mae West. Having already commented in her previous films, through her medium of sex comedies, on Hollywood, the New York society scene, and small town culture, here West examines organized religion as just another form of Show Business. (And yes, she also finds some screen time to kiss and cuddle with two very virile men.)
In the Hollywood of her time, two powerful competing Abrahamic cults controlled the motion picture industry: The strict patriarchal culture of east European Jews dominated the studio system, and the monstrously corrupt Catholicism of the ascending east-coast American church controlled censorship. West, rejecting the temptation to directly criticize either cult, instead strips down the business of modern religion to its bare bones and puts it on display: Manipulation and self-enrichment achieved through ignorant superstition, passionate emotion, and above all else, human crowd power dynamics.
Of course, West is far too canny to arouse the ire of any one religious cult by using its name and iconography, and so the 'brand' of religion she presents is called the Settlement House, a workable substitute for the Salvation Army. West's protagonist is a professional singer named Rose Carlton, a shady character known as The San Francisco Doll. After performing a number for the customers of the man who is 'keeping her', Carlton goes on the lam from the San Francisco cops aboard a ship bound for Nome, Alaska, during the 1890s gold rush. (The actual seven minute scene in which she kills her captor in self-defense was cut by the censors.)
Onboard the Java Maid, Rose encounters Captain Bull Bracket, played by Victor McLaglen, as well as Sister Annie Alden, played by Helen Jerome Eddy. Annie is a practitioner of the Settlement House, a sort of temperance league/self-help group which spells God with two o's. While fending off McLaglen's impressive attempts to 'rassle her', Carlton makes friends with the female reformer. Initially skeptical of one she sees as a do-gooder, Carlton is soon won over by Annie's genuine concern, kindness, and humanity. When the reformer dies of a heart attack at sea, Carlton, desperate to shake the cops, switches places with her, and thus Klondike Annie is born.
West could have played Annie as a hardened cynic simply out to make a buck, and indeed this is approach Carlton's former associates are all expecting. Fanny Radler (played by the great Esther Howard), the madam operating the 'dance hall' where the miners lose all their money, is rocked back on her heels when Carlton, as Annie, confronts her and demands she serve a better cause: "I speak your language," Carlton growls in West's signature nasal tones. "You'll do what I tell you, if you know what's good for you," she threatens, strong-arming the shadier performers into helping out at the Settlement House. West draws an equal sign in the air between the hookers, their piano players and bartenders, and the ineffective missionaries and reformers at Settlement House. The only difference is the degree of fun offered for sale. Everyone, including the audience, assumes Carlton's Sister Annie act is just a con job.
But what they fail to appreciate is the real sense of obligation Carlton now feels toward the real Sister Annie, who offered the former prostitute friendship and compassion instead of judgement and condemnation. This genuine caring has transformed The Doll for the better. It's one thing to shake down suckers for their cash, whether in a bar or in a church: it's quite another make a true convert. It is this bond of real sisterhood that has converted Carlton, and which galvanizes the woman as she quickly takes the dirty mining town by storm.
At the center of the film is an absolutely perfect extended scene set in the Settlement House, in which Mae assumes the mantle of that most peculiarly American creature, the tent revivalist. Crafty performer that she is, Rose Carlton knows that the only way to juice up the impact of the poorly-attended Settlement House meetings is, literally, to pack the house. This leads to an amusing scene in which Victor McLaglen literally throws and pushes people through the doors of the modestly-sized building, quickly resulting in a capacity crowd.
And that's when the magic happens.
Every performer, whether preacher, politician, singer, cheer leading team or speaker, knows that there is no substitute for the synergy of a tightly-packed human audience. And when West as Carlton as Annie takes the stage, without colored lights, crosses, robes, glitz, or any of the other trappings of formal religion, the magic happens once more. Every performer knows the undeniable power of the audience: every great performer knows instinctively how to unite her audience into a single mighty entity, and then take wing, bringing us along. In the capacity crowd of miners, hookers, and sundry other riff raff, West's Sister Annie character preaches a fiery sermon on the wages of sin, the evils of drunkenness, and the inevitable toll of dissipation. In this scene West fuses song, movement and oratory in the best tradition of southern Black Baptists and other performance-based religions, and her acting and singing is brilliant. Such is the power in the scene that you can see West herself deeply affected by the salvation of her targets.
But, alas, the police are still on her trail, and closing in. The dramatic irony of West's performance quickly escalates as she effortlessly, simultaneously, portrays both the ruthless floozy and the fire-breathing evangelist, switching back and forth sometimes within a single line. Using all the skills of the San Francisco Doll, Carlton makes Annie's mission a roaring success. The tension in her tightrope act only deepens as the danger of exposure and capture by the police grows, and we expect West's character to abandon her Annie act in order to save her own skin. Instead, Carlton commits more fully to her mission of redemption and repayment of the debt she owes Sister Annie, so much so that when the simple miners are inevitably moved to redemption, we also are swept away for a moment, experiencing the undeniable power of West/Carlton's whole-hearted embrace of preaching as another aspect of Show Business. For it is West's own thrilling headlong commitment to preaching that captivates and moves us, rather than the Settlement House's simple message of 'Do Better'.
In the end, Mae West gives us a deep insight into the real power of any and all religions. It's not the silly and dodgy dogmas that each man-made faith invents that can transform lives: it's the one-on-one contact of people who care about people, combined with the transformative magic of a great performer connecting with a packed house.
Others here have commented on the sickening censorship of the film: the Catholic priests in charge of enforcing the Hays code removed the entire scene depicting her murder in self-defense, known to us now only through internal references in the script. The Catholic church, the single largest patriarchal organization on the planet, could never allow the sympathetic depiction of a woman who defies, escapes and kills her male oppressor. The Salvation Army also demanded a scene be cut, when Carlton trades places with the dead Alden. They objected, not to the depiction of their cult as a bandwagon fund raising con, but rather to the woman's corpse being dressed up to look like an entertainer. Go figure.
What these censors left intact is West's display of the bare-fanged struggle at the heart of religion, between personal piety and the Show Business ethic that demands payment for entertainment. Far more damning than Carlton's censored murder scene is West's conclusion that all religious power ultimately comes down to personal contact and sweat equity, and that every sermon in every church is just another show.