Everyone thinks they know the line. You can probably picture it right now: the platinum blonde hair, the hourglass figure cinched into a corset, that inimitable nasal drawl, and the sultry invitation to come up and see me sometime. It is arguably one of the most iconic pieces of dialogue in cinema history. Except, there is a catch. Mae West, the woman who supposedly immortalized those words, didn't actually say them that way. Not in the movie everyone cites, anyway.
It's one of those "Mandela Effect" moments in pop culture. Much like "Play it again, Sam" was never uttered in Casablanca, the exact phrase "come up and see me sometime" is a collective hallucination we’ve agreed to call a fact.
The real story is a bit more nuanced. In the 1933 film She Done Him Wrong, West’s character, Lady Lou, is talking to a young, handsome Cary Grant, who plays a mission director named Captain Cummings. She doesn’t give him the snappy one-liner we all quote. Instead, she looks him up and down and says, "Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?" A few moments later, she adds, "I’m home every evening." Later in the same year, in the film I'm No Angel, she got closer, telling Grant, "Come up and see me sometime." But the specific, rhythmic cadence that the world memorized? That’s a bit of a remix.
The Cultural Weight of a Misquote
Why does this matter? Because Mae West wasn't just an actress; she was a structural engineer of her own brand. She knew exactly how to manipulate the censors of the 1930s. At a time when the Hays Code—the strict set of industry moral guidelines—was beginning to tighten its grip on Hollywood, West was a walking provocation.
She used double entendres like a surgeon uses a scalpel. When she told a man to "come up and see her," everyone in the theater knew she wasn't inviting him over to look at her stamp collection or discuss the local weather. It was a bold, public assertion of female sexual agency that was practically unheard of in the early thirties.
Hollywood was struggling. The Great Depression had emptied out the seats. Paramount Pictures was reportedly facing bankruptcy. Then came Mae West. She didn't just walk onto the screen; she sashayed. She brought a vaudeville sensibility to the silver screen that felt raw and dangerous. People didn't just go to see a movie; they went to see her. She wrote her own plays. She wrote her own screenplays. She was a powerhouse in an era where women were usually treated as decorative objects.
How the Quote Evolved and Stuck
If she didn't say it exactly that way, how did it become the "official" version? Blame the parodists. And maybe blame Mae herself.
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She was a master of self-promotion. Once the public started misquoting her, she didn't correct them. She leaned into it. She started using the "incorrect" version in her own publicity and later stage acts because it was punchier. It had a better rhythm. The human brain likes symmetry. "Come up and see me sometime" has a poetic meter that "Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?" lacks.
Think about the context of 1933. Radio was the dominant medium for celebrity impersonations. Comedians like Fred Allen or Jack Benny would have guests do "Mae West bits." When you're doing an impression, you exaggerate. You flatten the dialogue into a catchphrase. Within a few years, the caricature had replaced the reality.
The Cary Grant Connection
It is also worth noting that this quote helped solidify Cary Grant as a romantic lead. Before She Done Him Wrong, Grant was just another face in the crowd. West supposedly saw him on the lot and said, "If he can talk, I'll take him." She claimed she discovered him. Whether that's 100% true or part of the West mythology is up for debate among film historians like Scott Eyman, but the chemistry between them turned the invitation—the "come up"—into a legendary moment of cinematic heat.
The Battle with the Censors
Mae West's dialogue was a constant headache for the Will Hays office. They hated her. They hated the way she moved. They hated that she made being "bad" look like so much fun.
The phrase come up and see me sometime became a lightning rod for the moral guardians of the time. They saw it as an open invitation to vice. By 1934, the Production Code Administration (PCA) under Joseph Breen began enforcing the rules with an iron fist. West's later films were heavily sanitized. The sharp edges were filed down.
- Her scripts were scrutinized line by line.
- The censors demanded she change her tone, which they found "inherently suggestive."
- She was eventually "blacklisted" by the Catholic Legion of Decency.
But you can't censor a vibe. Even when her scripts were cleaned up, her delivery remained the same. She could say "Good morning" and make it sound like a felony. That is why the quote endured. It represented a rebellion against the stuffy, restrictive morality of the era.
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Why We Still Use It Today
It’s kind of funny. You see the phrase on coffee mugs, t-shirts, and in drag performances. It has become a shorthand for confidence.
When someone says it today, they aren't just quoting a movie. They are channeling a specific type of energy. It’s the energy of someone who knows they are the prize. Mae West was 40 years old when she became a movie star—an age that was considered "ancient" for a leading lady in the 1930s. She didn't care. She was short, she was curvy, and she was unapologetically herself.
The quote is basically the original "sliding into the DMs," but with way more class and a lot more lace.
Common Misconceptions and Trivia
- The "Pistol in your pocket" line: This is her other big quote. "Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" Like the other phrase, this one has multiple versions. She reportedly said it to a police officer who was escorting her at a train station in 1936, but it didn't make it into a film until 1978's Sextette.
- Writers' Credit: West was a member of the Dramatists Guild. She fought hard for her writing credits. She wasn't just a "dumb blonde" delivering lines written by men; she was the architect of her own dialogue.
- The Soundtrack: In She Done Him Wrong, the invitation is delivered amidst a backdrop of "Frankie and Johnny" and "A Guy What Takes His Time." The music set the mood for the words.
Impact on Modern Language and Media
We see the DNA of Mae West’s wit in modern characters all the time. From Miss Piggy to Samantha Jones in Sex and the City, the "come up and see me sometime" archetype is everywhere. It’s the "femme fatale" who isn't actually fatal—she’s just in control.
Language evolves. We drop words, we add others. The fact that the quote was "optimized" by the public shows how much we wanted West to be that specific character. We wanted the snappy, five-word invitation.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Writers
If you are a student of film or someone who just loves pop culture history, there are a few things you can do to actually appreciate the nuance of this history.
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Watch the source material. Don't rely on the YouTube clips of impressions. Watch She Done Him Wrong (1933) and I’m No Angel (1933) back-to-back. Notice how Cary Grant reacts. He’s playing the "straight man" to her whirlwind of charisma.
Understand the power of the rewrite. If you're a writer, look at how the public "fixed" West's line. The lesson here is brevity. "Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?" is clunky. "Come up and see me sometime" is a hook. Sometimes the "wrong" version is the "right" one for the audience.
Research the Hays Code. To really get why these words were scandalous, you have to understand what she was up against. Read about the 1934 crackdown. It changed Hollywood forever and arguably ended West's peak career because she refused to stop being suggestive.
Check your sources. This is a prime example of why you should never trust a "Top 10 Movie Quotes" list blindly. Half of them are usually slightly wrong. Real expertise comes from going back to the original frames of film.
Ultimately, Mae West didn't need the exact words to be a legend. She had the attitude. Whether she said "sometime and see me" or "see me sometime," the message was received loud and clear. She was inviting the world to play on her terms. And nearly a century later, we’re still talking about it. That is the real power of a well-delivered line, even if we can't quite get the words right.