Mon petit poussin chéri

It's a shame that West and Fields had such a dislike for each other. In their few scenes together you can see how incredible this film could've been. Their introduction on the train is a delight, with him slurping all over her "symmetrical digits" and she crooning "you're compromisin' me". Field's disguising himself as her lover the Masked Bandit and getting some lip action under false pretenses is hilarious. If only they could've spent so much more screen time with each other instead of focusing on their separate routines, this would be a major classic. As it is it is still great fun. And Fields' asides to Margaret Hamilton are priceless! "I hope she don't get too violent--I haven't strength enough to knock her down!"

I believe that, some time in the 1970's, more than thirty years after MY LITTLE CHICKADEE was made, the term "high concept" was coined. So, starting in the seventies, a lot of movies with sure-fire ideas became the trend. ("What?", someone, circa 1990 might say, "Arnold Schwarzenegger is being teamed with Danny DeVito? Why, that must be hilarious!") So, clearly, somebody thought the idea of W.C. Fields and Mae West sharing the silver screen would work, and MY LITTLE CHICKADEE remains the ultimate example of both the pitfalls and the merits of High Concept movie-making. Fields and West, both iconic figures, were actually so similar that the audience's loyalties are torn. We watch a West picture to observe Mae West turn the tables on men and we watch a Fields picture to watch Fields flout authority. When Fields and West meet and appear to like each other (he wanting sex and she wanting money) we love them both. Fields gets off one of his most memorable lines as he holds her fingers up to his lips and says, "What symmetrical digits.") She, in turn, throws her false submission at him, letting us know between the lines that she's a woman of steel. So far, so good. Their romance is viewed suspiciously by a character actress who is the perfect foil for both of them: Margaret Hamilton, who, of course, played the Wicked Witch of the West the year before in THE WIZARD OF OZ. Fields and West are married aboard the train by West's con-man friend -- hence, they are not really being married -- and this actor is also the sort of figure who belongs in a movie with either Fields or West. But let's cut to the chase. Both Fields and West have separate moments for the rest of the movie and each of these moments is somewhat minimal. West's scene teaching a classroom of overgrown adolescents seems to be a whitewashing of a bawdy routine from her stage days. It almost makes it. Fields's various encounters with gamblers and a female drunk (who HAS to be Celeste Holm, uncredited, as someone else on this board has noted) are promising, but somehow never really engaging. Thinking about this movie, nevertheless, brings a smile to the face. There are so many little things which, popping into the memory, are funny, that it has to be acknowledged that MY LITTLE CHICKADEE achieved its goal: driving into our minds the idea of the harmony of two comics who'd made audiences howl with laughter in live performance twenty years earlier. It should also be said that the ideal audience for MY LITTLE CHICKADEE is an audience in a darkened movie theatre. Ideally, the year should be the year it was made and the audience should be made up of people who've been anticipating this pairing and would be more than willing to hoot throughout. Has anybody got a time machine?

No need to recap the plot.

I guess Universal figured that since West and Fields were so funny apart, they'd be even funnier together. Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out that way. Each gets off some funny lines, but rarely do they share the same frame. It's almost like two movies in one. But then neither comedian needs a second party to bounce jokes off of. Each was like a self- contained act on his or her own—West with her leering innuendos, Fields with his grouchy misanthropy. So trying to mix them is like trying to mix Jupiter with Mars. Good thing the great Margaret Hamilton is along to bridge the gap.

If West comes off a shade less prominently than Fields, it's probably because she's less of an actor. Basically, she's got one comedic posture, and as good as it is, her air of the sexually irresistible doesn't adapt well. Fields' style, on the other hand, goes through a number of emotions, exasperation never far behind. Then too, his fascination with words from the thesaurus is usually on dialog display. Here I really love "euphonious appellation" instead of the more down-to-earth "nice sounding name".

Anyway, each was a comedic genius in his or her own right. And I particularly salute West for her daring brand of comedy at a time when censors did their best to eliminate the fleshy side of life. Nonetheless, each is better viewed in solo starring roles, e.g. Fields in It's a Gift (1934), and West in I'm No Angel (1933).

Mae West was certainly not your classic beauty, but sauntering into Hollywood at the age of 40 (!) she was somehow very attractive, if more in a "just can't take your eyes off" sort of way than one of genuine good looks. She had a saucy charisma and brash feminine confidence that made her age and weight oddly desirable, and within the start of her film career a bonafide symbol. But by the time of "My Little Chickadee," at 48, it seems her age has finally caught up to her, and she is reduced to making cheap imitations of herself. The magic and allure is all gone, and though she makes a brave attempt at salvaging a last piece of that brazen hell of films like "She Done Him Wrong" and "I'm No Angel," her success is poor. What's more her self-confidence has seemed to become a self-centerdness, and she no longer seems to be acting, but standing alone quoting herself. She no longer really reacts to anyone, but is completely self-contained, as if she was the only actor in the whole picture.

But old age, weight, and wrinkles, the things that most dragged down West, only add to the charm of Fields, who turns in a delightful and suitable performance. For Fields, "My Little Chickadee" only helps to better define his screen presence, and at times he would be very funny. I say "would be." Perhaps it is the admirable struggle and fail of a star who could have nearly retired by the time she was just starting out, but the film has an air of sadness that... well, just isn't funny.

My Little Chickadee is like a home movie W.C. Fields and Mae West just happened to make in their spare time, on the studio lot, back in 1940. The budget was not as ample as Miss West's er, well anyway, it's a pretty big picture but not that big. The dialogue is better than the film, which is frankly an amateurish mess. Both stars were past their prime when they made this western parody, and both seem a little tired, in general, and with one another, in their scenes together. They're much better when reciting the dialogue, which they worked on together (ah, to have been a fly on the wall during their script conferences). Maybe they spent all their energy on the writing. There certainly isn't much in their performing. For all its flaws, the movie has some hilarious moments, such as Fields' suggestion that he has "some definite pear-shaped ideas" he would like to discuss with Miss West.

Movie censorship was at its peak when this one was made. Fields and West had been two of the shining lights of early talkies, and the advent of the Production Code in the mid-thirties set them both back professionally, especially Miss West, who was the prime cause of it. Since they couldn't quite give this movie their all, due to the extreme censorship of the time, one has to continually read between the lines. There's a lot there, though not as much as I think they imagined there was. The film is an heroic effort none the less, if by today's standards rather quaint.