"Annie the Klondike" Perhaps it is careless to meet Mr. Forrest alone? Especially for you, Sister Annie.
- I'm trying to save him...
- They were saved in five minutes.
- Yes, but this is a very difficult case!
It's amazing that Mae West's films [as of September 2018] are so unpopular with moviegoers. Kamon, peeple: they were even played on the CTC in the night movie section. Stop Again: night. Well, maybe the guards and the guards checked out our beauty, eh?
Mae West is playing Mae West again. Plays a role. She’s like James Bond or Jason Voorhees, that part of the Mae West franchise could even be called Mae West storming Manhattan. Klondike! And she has a wonderful role - a kind of bad girl, but with a good soul. The image is in many ways the opposite of May in real life, in particular – the actress did not drink or smoke, and who after watching “Trip to the City” or “Beauty of the 90s” will take the opposite? A talentless actress, Ilf and Petrov? Just ... no!
"Annie from Klondike" is definitely a step forward for May from lighter and more unassuming vaudevilles to serious cinema. May herself considered “Annie” a successful picture and one of her most serious achievements in her career, despite the fact that many of the signature sharpness of the actress and even entire episodes (efforts of censorship) were on the editing floor. This, in turn, led to restrained criticism of the tape from both professionals and ordinary viewers: more to the drama Mae West did not turn. And “Annie” itself was stuck somewhere between serious and frivolous, remaining in West’s filmography a single modest experiment.
In the story: escaped from a bored boyfriend on Klondike and pursued by the police on suspicion of murder, Mae West replaces the deceased companion – sister Annie. Then he tells the people of the town that he is an ambassador of good will, who will cleanse them from contamination and lead them to God. This sounds very original in the performance of May: "You have no chance." You don't know how to fight the devil! I know. We need to grab him by the tail, bend the snout to the ground by the horns. You need to know his methods, believe me! Cinema plots where a thug pretends to be a priest or a missionary are quite common - Chaplin's Pilgrim, We Are Not Angels with Bogart, or a remake of the latter in which De Niro plays. May is also very convincing: without trembling in the body and falsehood in the voice.
It is worth watching at least for the sake of retro charm: when May picks up a guitar and tightens her blues.
