My Little Chickadee

I love this little gem of a movie. It has two of the great stars of the early cinema, W.C. Fields and Mae West.

Fields is hilarious in his role as con man/card shark Cuthbert J. Twillie, who meets Flower Belle Lee (Miss West's character) on a train bound for Greasewood, a town that is ran by corrupt saloon owner Jeff Badger (Joseph Calleia). Flower Belle was ran out of her previous town and cannot return until she is married and a respectful woman, i.e., not promiscuous. She marries Cuthbert just to give her some respectability and it's hilarious to watch Fields pathetic attempts to try to be with his unwilling bride.

Of course, since this a Mae West film (both she and Fields wrote the screenplay) there are several funny double entendres in the film and Mae gets to sing a song, Willie of the Valley. I love both Mae West and W.C. Fields...they were both legends and I really wish they would have made another film together. The Hollywood rumor mill had it that they actually couldn't stand each other off screen, but if this is true, and I tend to believe that their feud was exaggerated for publicity purposes, you could not tell it by their performances. They had terrific on screen chemistry together.

"My Little Chickadee" is a fun film all the way around.