Now Playing: OCT. 14, 1933

Raoul Walsh's The Bowery was the box-office champ in Milwaukee last week. At the least, it's the only one of that week's releases to be held over for another week. It most likely won't be this week's champ, and here's why:

That's some ballyhoo. Mae West has never lived up to it whenever I've tried to watch one of her movies. She's nobody's standard of beauty, but her sexuality was a matter more of attitude than looks. The ad copy here ("sexotic ... scorch singin', diamond chasin'...") conveys that same attitude, albeit in the manner of a carnival barker. As West grew older, that attitude turned to camp, but to describe what it was in its own time, in her prime, the best word is Pre-Code.