Belle of The Nineties [Mae West and Roger Pryor]
![Belle of The Nineties [Mae West and Roger Pryor]](/images/Belle-of-The-Nineties-Mae-West-and-Roger-Pryor-B000EWFINI-L.jpg)
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DVD Cover Information
DVD: Region Code 1.0Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Black & White, Import, NTSC
Running Time: 73 unknown-units
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 6710
Movie Reviews of Belle of The Nineties [Mae West and Roger Pryor]
Movie Review: Botched by Censorship
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie was actually a Pre-Code completed in June 1934--any movie made and completed between 1929 and July 1934-- and was shipped to the censor's office a day too late on July 1, 1934, perhaps July 2. The entire movie was closer to 80 minutes, but the censors who just swept into town, headed by the small-minded Joseph Breen, refused to let the vulgarity go past them. The number of films they dealt with inundated them. So a few Pre-Codes did get released without their imprimatur. Unfortunately, Belle of the Nineties was not one of them.
The beginning was completely removed, which explained her relationship to the Tiger Kid and her move to New Orleans. The ending was cut (walking away with the Tiger Kid unmarried and killing Ace LaMontt in a knife fight) and re-shot with her being properly married and LaMontt accidentally hitting his head. The men who follow her around are her clients and lovers. Actually, they spend all afternoon with her in her room on the boat, but that was gutted, too. The innuendo was removed in toto. In fact the movie was assembled and re-edited in such a way that the picture becomes dull and redundant. Sequences like "Pray Chillun'/Troubled Waters" are beautiful but entirely pointless because of the changes. Not even the wardrobe escapes the tedium. Mae's stunning costumes contrast with dishwater dialogue.
This picture contains some really hot jazz numbers like "Memphis Blues" and "My Old Flame" done with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, but they are too few and far between to sustain interest in this piece. Mae mills about looking for opportunities to strut, but can't do it in the whitewash of the post-Code world. If this picture had been put through, quite literally a month earlier, it would have been a hit. However, for Mae's being Breen's favorite enemy, he trimmed it of juicy footage. (A similar thing happened to "Klondike Annie" which had 8 minutes of apparently objectionable scenes sucked out from it) Yet, until the lost footage is found, this remains a mangled masterpiece. The original was really a boundary breaker. This is merely a curio only for Mae West devotees. Even more, this is a dicey Taiwanese import. Buy this at your own peril.
Summary of Belle of The Nineties [Mae West and Roger Pryor]
Mae West, who wrote this and a handful of other movies during the 1930s, stars as 1890s blues singer Ruby in a comic romp that follows the dazzling entertainers quest to find the man of her dreams without being duped. Ruby distracts boxer Tiger so much that Tigers manager asks Ruby to leave town, but its not the last that Ruby and Tiger will see of each other. Singing such songs as "My Old Flame" and "Memphis Blues" with a sultry air in front of Duke Ellingtons orchestra, Ruby projects sex and sincerity at the same moment. Using both her brains and her looks to keep herself out of the grasp of troublemakers, Ruby outwits her female competition and the male predators to emerge unscathed and with her beau on her arm.DVD Video
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