The screening on Friday 19 June will be introduced by film programmer, Caroline Cassin.

She Done Him Wrong is centered around Lady Lou, a saloon singer who finds herself entangled in romantic and criminal intrigues in New York City during the Gay Nineties. The film, which marked Mae West's first starring role, was both a commercial success and a critical favorite, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The film's playful innuendos and West's iconic line, 'Why don't you come up sometime and see me?', have cemented its place in cinema history. Despite initial controversies and censor cuts, it not only saved Paramount Pictures from financial ruin but was also selected for preservation in the National Film Registry for its cultural significance.

Curator's note:

Though not purely a Screwball Comedy, She Done Him Wrong is included in this selection because it sits within the realm of romantic comedies featuring an emancipated female protagonist who takes no prisoners. Crucially, the suggestiveness of the script and West's liberated view of female sexuality gave impetus to the new guidelines for industry censorship known as the Hays Production Code - which, for many film historians, is the very reason Screwball Comedy exists. The genre was born as a reaction to the Code, finding ever more inventive ways to subvert it. Featuring a very young Cary Grant - a Screwball Comedy regular - it is the film that propelled both him and West to fame. 

Caroline Cassin is an Assistant Programmer at the British Film Institute and graduated with an MA in Film Studies, Programming and Curation from the National Film and Television School. Caroline hosts the monthly pre-Code cinema series, Women & Cocaine, at the Cinema Museum in London, and she curated the retrospective on Dorothy Arzner at the BFI in 2024. Her projects explore and re-examine women’s history in the film industry, both behind and in front of the camera.

Cast:
Mae West, Cary Grant, Owen Moore, Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery, Sr David Landau