Product Details

• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000EWFINI
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #121,629 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When a St. Louis Woman Heads Down to New Orleans..., January 4, 2008

By	Gavin (NC) - See all my reviews

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Can Mae West ever not be amazing? Her wit and charm shines through and her singing is the best I've heard so far in her movies. Pick this one up and it will be an instant favorite.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Botched by Censorship, December 15, 2008

By	A. M. Schmidt (Philly, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.