I'm No Angel (1933)

Mae West's reputation for tweaking the noses of film censors was well-established by the time she made I'm No Angel, generally considered her most successful picture. The frank-speaking blonde bombshell delivered some of her most classic double entendres in this 1933 film, her second consecutive outing opposite the luminous Cary Grant. The two had made She Done Him Wrong earlier that year, and in I'm No Angel West does Grant wrong again, to hilarious effect. West plays her typical floozy, a carnival dancer, who escapes a murder charge and cozies her way into high society, where she famously tells her maid: "Beulah, peel me a grape." Eventually, she wins Grant, then drops him and sues him for breach of contract. Rarely has a more intelligent, sexually powerful, and dominant female figure been seen on screen, and West is at her sizzling comic peak. Already a major entertainment figure, West rode the popularity of I'm No Angel to greater notoriety, but she never again teamed up with a male superstar so successfully. West's movies were among those most responsible for bringing a new era of censorship after the early 1930s. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide