For Tira the Lion Tamer in the film famous for “Beulah, peel me a grape,” Mae West wrote many an indelicate line, the entendres doubled by her inimitable delivery. Made just before the crackdown, it's a kind of farewell to screen sex, a demonstration reel not only for censors but for producers, as well: in Tira's various audiences—from slavering sideshow suckers to society dames who find her fascinating, to judge and jury in one of the great courtroom routs—they could see just what they stood to lose. One of West's funniest films, it's also her boldest, as Tira, cheered on by her biggest fans (her maids), grows from tawdry temptress into her mantle of “Feminine beauty, triumphant and unafraid.” The prize is real passion; it's guaranteed you'll be thinking about the same thing Tira and her society hottie Cary Grant are at the film's close.
—Judy Bloch