Tonight's Movie: Every Day's a Holiday (1937) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

My summer of Mae West viewing continued into the fall with EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY (1937), available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

West wrote the screenplay and stars as Peaches O'Day, a con artist in turn-of-the-century New York City.

Peaches is threatened with arrest by Captain Jim McCarey (Edmund Lowe); McCarey is sympathetic to Peaches and allows her to leave town instead.

Peaches transforms herself into the black-haired "Parisian sensation" Mademoiselle Fifi, pursued by police captain and mayoral candidate John Quade (Lloyd Nolan).

When Fifi rejects Quade, he tries to shut down her performances. McCarey refuses to cooperate and not only quits the police force, he runs for mayor against Quade. Peaches/Fifi is, of course, right in the middle of all the goings-on.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all the Mae West films seen to date, but this one title never quite jelled for me. There are some good lines yet the story simply isn't engaging, and Mae seems a bit tamer than usual. Perhaps some of the problem is that her naughtiness is more related to being a con artist than her romantic exploits.

I'm a fan of Lowe but he's somewhat underused, and the usually excellent Nolan is fairly cardboard as the villain. There's a good supporting cast, with Charles Butterworth, Charles Winninger, and Walter Catlett in support -- even a musical appearance by Louis Armstrong! -- yet in this case the parts are better than the whole. The film never really takes off, sort of limping along for its 80-minute running time.

This movie was directed by A. Edward "Eddie" Sutherland and filmed in black and white by Karl Struss.

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray looks good, as have all the West films. The disc has a commentary by Kat Ellinger plus the trailer and five additional Mae West trailers.

Previous reviews of Mae West films released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber: NIGHT AFTER NIGHT (1932), SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933), I'M NO ANGEL (1933), BELLE OF THE NINETIES (1934), GOIN' TO TOWN (1935), KLONDIKE ANNIE (1936), and GO WEST YOUNG MAN (1936).

I've enjoyed reviewing all these Mae West films so much that I purchased a copy of Kino Lorber's release of MY LITTLE CHICKADEE (1940), in which she stars with W.C. Fields, and I'll be reviewing that here at a future date.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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