My Little Chickadee
Directed by Edward F. Cline
Written by Mae West and W.C. Fields
1940/US
Universal Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Flower Belle Lee: Any time you got nothin’ to do and lots of time to do it, come up.[/box]
This had potential — if only Mae West had not been trammeled by the production Code.
A narrow-minded gossip (Margaret Hamilton) gets Flower Belle Lee (West) banished from a frontier town for consorting with a mysterious bandit and threatens to prevent her from settling elsewhere until Flower Belle has a wedding ring on her finger. She captivates ne’er-do-well Cuthbert J. Twillie (W.C. Fields) on the train to Greasewood City and the two are “married” by an incognito poker hustler(Donald Meek).
When they arrive, the corrupt town boss (Joseph Calleia) is immediately smitten by our little flower and appoints Cuthbert sheriff to get him out of the way. But Flower Belle is still romanced by the mask man and has a trick or two up her sleeve as well.
This is an enjoyable movie but could have been so much better. You can see Mae West moving in the direction of some truly delicious double-entendres but the Code wouldn’t really let her be her outrageous best. Fields is good but I really loved the supporting cast, especially Calleia who has a bigger than usual part here.
Trailer
I am pretty sure I saw this one, but it drowned among all the other W.C. Fields movies I saw. With Mae West it should ring a bell, but no.
I thought this was one of the better Fields movies. At least there was nothing irritating about it.
The Code pretty much put an end to Mae West’s career since her schtick was the double entendre and without it, there wasn’t much she could do with her character. Fields was also on his way down as his drinking was finally catching up with him and the Code was also stifling him. With that said, I still had fun with this film……putting two eccentric actors on the screen at the same time certainly led to scene stealing but it was fun to watch.
I have to give Mae West credit. She delivered some pretty tame dialogue with admirable lecherousness.