My Little Chickadee
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My Little Chickadee is a 1940 Universal comedy/western motion picture starring Mae West and W.C. Fields, with Joseph Calleia, Dick Foran, Ruth Donnelly, Margaret Hamilton, Donald Meek, Willard Robertson, George Moran, William B. Davidson, and Addison Richards.
The screenplay was written by Mae West and W.C. Fields; it was directed by Edward F. Cline. The original music was written by Ben Oakland (song "Willie of the Valley") and Frank Skinner.
Miss West reportedly wrote the original screenplay, and Fields contributed one extended scene in the script set in a bar. Universal decided to give the stars equal screenplay credit, perhaps to avoid the appearance of favoritism, but the move incensed Mae West, who declined to reteam with Fields after the film became a major hit.
The movie has memorable lines from West and Fields throughout, with her continuous stream of double entendres, as they spoof themselves and the western genre.
83 mins.; black-and-white
The story is set in the Old West of the 1880s. Miss Flower Belle Lee (played by West) is a singer from Chicago who is on her way to visit relatives out west. While she is traveling on a stagecoach with three male passengers and a woman passenger named Mrs. Gideon (played by Hamilton), the town gossip and busybody, a masked bandit on horseback holds up the stage for its shipment of gold and orders the passengers to step out.
"I don't mind being held up, but I don't like the inconvenience," Flower Belle quips.
The masked bandit immediately takes an interest in the saucy blonde, whom he calls "my pretty one." As he makes his getaway with the gold, he suddenly turns his horse around and gallops back. He then sweeps Flower Belle off her feet and onto the horse, taking her with him.
Upon reaching Little Bend, the others report the robbery and kidnapping to the Sheriff (played by Davidson). Flower Belle then comes walking into town, unharmed, and explains, "I was in a tight spot but I managed to wriggle out of it."
Later that evening, at the home of her Aunt Lou (played by Donnelly) and Uncle John (played by Robertson), the masked bandit enters Flower Belle's second floor bedroom and they start kissing. Mrs. Gideon is walking by and sees the reflection of their shadows on the curtains. She then recognizes his horse. Moments later, she sees the masked bandit climb from the window, get on his horse and ride off into the night.
Mrs. Gideon quickly reports Flower Belle's illicit relations with the masked bandit and Flower Belle angrily finds herself hauled up before the Judge (played by Richards).
"Are you trying to show contempt for this court?" he asks.
"No," she replies, "I'm doing my best to hide it."
Flower Belle is then run out of Little Bend and ordered not to return until she can prove herself respectable and married.
While heading to Greasewood City on the train, which also has Mrs. Gideon aboard, they make an unscheduled stop between stations because an Indian named Milton (played by Moran) is sitting on a donkey pulling a cart with con-man Cuthbert J. Twillie (played by Fields) resting on it as they block the railroad tracks.
As Twillie gathers his belongings and boards the locomotive, he asks the conductor, "Do you have any private cars with a room and bath and exclusive bar?"
He soon notices Flower Belle.
"I wonder what kind of woman you are?" he says.
"Sorry, I don't give out samples," she replies.
A tribe of hostile Indians attack the moving train. With brash confidence and charisma, Flower Belle gets two pistols and saunters to a window, where she shoots the braves from their horses like she is at a shooting gallery while Twillie dodges flying arrows and fights off the Indians with a child's slingshot.
Flower Belle has little use for Twillie until she sees a stash of money in his bag. Believing him to be rich, she then plays up to him and they get acquainted.
"It is not good for man to be alone," he says.
"Yeah, it's not much fun for a woman either," she quips.
"Do you think it possible for us to be lonesome together?" he asks.
"Quite possible," she replies.
They then have an impromptu wedding, which is officiated over by a passenger, Amos Budge (played by Meek), a gambler who looks like a minister. He uses gambling terms, but the service is drowned out by the loud whistle of the train.
As she has only pretended to marry Twillie for "respectability," Flower Belle registers in a separate room, with a private bath, at the hotel in Greasewood City.
Twillie is made Sheriff by the saloon owner and town boss Jeff Badger (played by Calleia), who has an ulterior motive. Twillie has comic scenes tending bar and cheating at cards.
Flower Belle has also attracted the attention of Badger, as well as the eye of newspaper editor Wayne Carter (played by Foran) and every man in town.
There is a bathtub scene that shows only Twillie's feet scrubbing his legs with a bar of soap held between his toes, followed by him heading for bed, where his "wife" is presumably sleeping. It turns out to be a goat under the blankets.
Flower Belle tames the town's classroom of unruly and delinquent boys, spending a day as substitute schoolmarm teaching readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic, giving them a lesson about figures, of course, as well as her own version of history.
"Education is a great thing," she says to her pupils. "Gotta work hard and study. I'm still studying. I don't study the same things you do..."
While keeping her troublesome "husband" out of reach and out of trouble, Flower Belle encounters the masked bandit again, who is really one of the big men in town, and they have a secret rendezvous. He remains masked, of course.
Twillie enters Flower Belle's room one night disguised as the masked bandit. As they are kissing, she asks, "What have you been drinking, embalming fluid?"
He is accused of being the masked bandit, and is about to be hanged. With the noose around his neck, he makes his last request to the lynching party. "I'd like to see Paris before I die. Philadelphia will do!"
Flower Belle gets Twillie out of the scrape. At one point, she and Badger have an intimate moment. She realizes from the way he kisses that he is the masked bandit without his mask.
The end has Flower Belle and Twillie saying good-bye as she stands on the stairs of the hotel, and West and Fields spoof the signature line of the other.
"Come up and see me sometime," he says.
"Mmm, I will, my little chickadee," she replies.
[edit] Trivia
- "My little chickadee" is the catch phrase most associated with W.C. Fields. He first used it during a scene in If I Had a Million (1932) to address co-star Alison Skipworth.
- "Come up and see me sometime" is an extremely famous misquotation of Mae West in I'm No Angel (1933). The actual line was "Why don't you come up sometime and see me."
- My Little Chickadee was Mae West's first screen performance since Every Day's A Holiday (1937) for Paramount. This was her only performance for Universal (which incidentally now owns most of the pre-1950 Paramount sound library).
- W.C. Fields also starred in a series of comedies for Paramount in the 1930s. This was his second performance for Universal.
- Margaret Hamilton played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, which was released the year before My Little Chickadee.
