When women go wrong, men go right after them.
Genuine
Yes. In She Done Him Wrong (1933), Lady Lou reassures Sally Glynn; approximately 00:16:46 in the copy indexed by Clip.Cafe, said by Lady Lou. These are the character’s words, not a statement in West’s own voice.
Checked against She Done Him Wrong (Paramount Pictures, 1933), Mae West as Lady Lou; English WEBVTT caption track for her reassurance to Sally, hosted by Clip.Cafe, WEBVTT cue 00:00:01.500–00:00:04.998; host HTML transcript 00:00:01.000–00:00:04.498; host’s movie offset 00:16:46, in the recording’s automatic captions only.
- Work
- She Done Him Wrong, 1933
- Where
- Lady Lou reassures Sally Glynn; approximately 00:16:46 in the copy indexed by Clip.Cafe
- Source
- She Done Him Wrong (Paramount Pictures, 1933), Mae West as Lady Lou; English WEBVTT caption track for her reassurance to Sally, hosted by Clip.Cafe, WEBVTT cue 00:00:01.500–00:00:04.998; host HTML transcript 00:00:01.000–00:00:04.498; host’s movie offset 00:16:46
- Checked
- In the recording’s automatic captions only
Researched by AI. Entry updated 26 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
About this quote
The scene
Lou is helping Sally after an apparent suicide attempt over a man Sally says she did not know was married. Lou refuses to condemn her, arranges fresh clothes, and tells her to forget the man and find a better one. Sally asks who would want her after what she has done; Lou answers with this reassurance.
What it means
A woman judged to have gone morally astray will still attract men. The joke turns go wrong into a destination that men hurry to follow her to.
Often misread
Detached from the exchange, it can sound like a cynical generalization about supposedly bad women. Here Lou uses it to answer a distressed woman’s fear that she is permanently undesirable; it is fictional dialogue, not an abstract moral judgment by West.
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Sources
Cite it
Mae West, She Done Him Wrong (1933), Lady Lou reassures Sally Glynn; approximately 00:16:46 in the copy indexed by Clip.Cafe. Spoken by Lady Lou. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/when-women-go-wrong/ (26 October 2026).
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Checked by people
People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.
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