For plenty of reasons, there's something about Mae West's films that just spell "provocative." This isn't very surprising, considering she was at the forefront of 1930s sexuality, and had gotten in trouble a few times in the past for using this to her advantage. I already talked about a movie with her some months ago called I'm No Angel, which co-stars a young Cary Grant. While West still radiated lewdness in that movie, this film from 1936 is probably even more tasteless. Don't get me wrong the movie actually does have a storyline and its share of interesting (and even enchanting) moments, but the reason it has a negative reputation in my opinion is because it has to do with religion, the involvement of which in a sexually driven story is rarely a good idea. The movie starts, strangely enough, in San Francisco's chinatown. Rose Carlton (Mae West) works as something of a singer at what looks like a casino, and has a sizable array of outlandish outfits. Behind her glamorous exterior, she isn't happy with her job. Her boss, Chan Lo, is reluctant to let her go anywhere or do anything without him knowing about it, as she is his mistress. One day, Rose kills him and flees the city on a ship heading to the icy fringes of the north. The captain of the ship, Bull Brackett, is smitten with Rose the second she comes onboard, but soon finds out about her murder. Later, a woman named Annie also boards the ship, and because she's essentially a missionary, Rose gains respect for her. However, Annie dies before the ship reaches its destination. Rose impersonates Annie in order to both avoid detection from the cops and to save a certain alaskan church from bankruptcy. In a complete role reversal, Rose transitions from an alluring, wisecracking harlot to one of the church's most admired members. As "sister Annie", she raises a lot of money for the church because she is a talented singer. While in alaska, "Annie" starts having an affair with Jack Forrest (Philip Reed), who is a member of law enforcement and is supposed to be arresting Rose, but doesn't. To make a long story short, Rose gets back on the ship she came to alaska on and tells Brackett she has to go back to california and admit her crime because Annie would have wanted that. As stated earlier, this movie has quite a number of scenes in it that would be lewd even today, which is surprising since this is not a pre code film. For one thing, because it starts in chinatown, it has a lot of instances where asian actors are depicted as being subservient to white ones, and West's relationship with Chan is a good example of this. Aside from that, there's also the fact that West later becomes a member of a church and attempts to intertwine her activities there with her promiscuity. Like most Mae West movies, Klondike Annie was subjected to a large amount of censorship, basically just because she stars in it. About 8 minutes worth of footage was cut from the movie, and the cut portion is now gone forever. One of the cut scenes allegedly has Annie dress as a prostitute when she is still alive. To summarize, Klondike Annie was a good enough movie, but only mostly because Mae (and her singing voice) carry the whole thing. The movie is otherwise a curiosity.
Review of Klondike Annie
