“When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.” — Mae West
Mae West wrote the comeback herself. The line belongs to Tira, the character she plays in I’m No Angel (1933), and she’s credited with the story, the screenplay and all the dialogue. Her co-star is Cary Grant, who plays Jack Clayton.
Jack has come to talk Tira out of seeing his engaged cousin, Kirk Lawrence, and ends up falling for her instead. His setup is plain enough: “Tonight, you were especially good.” Her answer is the part people still repeat.
In July 1933, Studio Relations director James Wingate told Paramount the punch line “should be deleted.” It stayed in. The film opened in the U.S. on October 6, 1933.
I’m No Angel followed She Done Him Wrong, another West and Grant pairing from earlier that year. Her pictures were keeping Paramount solvent through the Depression, which is part of why a writer and star who could land a line like that one was worth protecting.
That’s the detail that tends to get lost when the words travel on their own. They read like something clever somebody said once, but West built them into a scene, handed herself the setup through Grant, and delivered the payoff. The censor wanted it gone and the audience got it anyway.