IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

Both W.C. Fields and Mae West are more or less unknown to younger audiences. From the 1980s onward, their films did not get much broadcast airplay, especially in comparison to some other comedians of their time, such as the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, and Abbott & Costello. If the under-50 set has even heard of a Mae West or W.C. Fields movie, it is probably My Little Chickadee, due to the stunt teaming of the two most subversive comedians of the 1930s in a single film (in the same way that the crossover film, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is the best known of Bud & Lou’s filmography). This is a shame, as it is not the best work of either Fields or West, and it gives modern audiences a skewed view of their work. Still, the film is not without its merits. I recently had an opportunity to revisit the movie with fresh eyes, through an advanced copy of the upcoming Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. A review of both the film and the Blu-ray presentation follows (as if you didn’t already know that).

My Little Chickadee is a bit more plot-heavy than most of the films that West and (especially) Fields produced individually. Mae West stars as Flower Belle, a scandalous woman, booted from her home town because of the residents’ belief that she was the lover of the notorious Masked Bandit (Joseph Calleia). On the train out of town, she makes the acquaintance of con man Cuthbert J. Twillie (W.C. Fields), who she mistakenly thinks is loaded (with cash, that is. He’s almost certainly loaded on spirits). Attracted by the money, Flower Belle pretends to marry Cuthbert, but the ceremony is as fake as Twillie’s supposed fortune. Fields spends most of the rest of the film trying to consummate the union; while West splits her affections between the Masked Bandit and an honest newspaper editor (Dick Foran).

The film was a financial hit for the studio, but the pairing of the comedians was not as successful as one would have hoped. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea from the start. Teaming two subversive comedians in the same film diminished their individual impact and screen time. In their solo films, each comic was a transgressive figure surrounded by rubes, nags, and other disapproving “upright” citizens. When you bring two decadent personalities together in the same space, it normalizes their behavior and makes it seem less unusual.

Another issue that keeps the team of West and Fields from really clicking is that I consider W.C. Fields’ performance in My Little Chickadee one of the worst, if not the worst, of his career. In his scenes with West, he shouts all of his lines and embellishes his dialogue with florid vocabulary to an almost irritating degree. In short, he appears to be overcompensating in sharing the frame with another master scene-stealer. West seems much more relaxed and unfazed by comparison. Fields’ performance in these scenes not only hurts the movie. I believe it also hurt his reputation as an artist. I suspect that this film was more responsible than anything else for the rash of terrible W.C. Fields imitators in the 1960s. Rich Little, Ed McMahon, Richard Dawson, and numerous lesser-knowns outfitted themselves in costumes modeled after Cuthbert J. Twillie and bellowed in the same annoying manner, as if that was the way that Fields always performed. It’s a shame, because W.C. was much better than that. There’s a reason he was referred to as “the Great Man.” At his best, he was the finest film funnyman of the mid-to-late 20th Century (and my personal favorite movie comedian).

Despite the outsized performance by Fields, I still cherish this film, and both comedians fare better in the scenes where they perform separately. West has a great scene in which she takes over teaching a schoolroom of unruly boys, and she really shines during her musical rendition of “Willie of the Valley.” No one can say Mae West didn’t know how to sell a song.

Fields also has some great moments in his solo scenes, where he seems much more at ease and turns down the volume. The crown gem of the entire picture is a Fields solo showcase where he tends bar, dealing with a particularly disruptive female customer and bragging about how he dealt with another rowdy woman in the past (“You ever kick a woman in the midriff that had a pair of coresets on?… Why, I nearly broke my great toe. I never had such a painful experience.”). The scene is wonderfully preposterous, and it includes the type of casual absurdity and surreal sight gags that are pure Fields. The only negative about this standout sequence is it feels out of place, as if it were written for a different (probably better) movie.

It should be noted that there are many stories regarding the contentious relationship between Fields and West during the making of My Little Chickadee. Most of those stories are likely apocryphal or highly exaggerated, as both Mae West and W.C. Fields never let the truth get in the way of a good story. In addition, West lived three and one-half decades after Fields had passed on, so she had free rein to make herself the hero or victim of anecdotes without anyone around to contradict her. Based on written records of the time and remembrances of other participants on the set, the filming apparently went a lot smoother than expected; and on the whole, the two stars treated each other respectfully. However, we do know that Mae West was a teetotaler and had a clause written into her contract that allowed her to shut down the set if she ever caught Fields drunk. Stories vary as to whether she ever acted upon it, but everyone agrees that the Great Man continued to drink unabated throughout the shoot.

It is also known that after the film was released, Mae West was unhappy that W.C. Fields received co-writing credit on the screenplay (albeit in second position). She insisted that she wrote the final script and Fields only wrote the aforementioned bartending scene. In truth, there were a lot of hands in the writing process, from W.C. Fields’ original treatment entitled “December and Mae,” through several rejected drafts by studio screenwriter Grover Jones (The Trail of the Lonesome Pine), to Mae West’s final draft, which left holes in the script for Fields to insert his own dialogue and material. In truth, one of the weakest aspects of the movie is the story (especially the boring Masked Bandit narrative), so it really isn’t worth arguing over credit anyway.

My Little Chickadee is not top-tier Mae West or W.C. Fields, so I wouldn’t make it your first film for either comedian. For West, I’d suggest you start with her Pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel. For Fields, I’d suggest beginning with his ‘everyman’ films, It’s a Gift, Man on the Flying Trapeze, and The Bank Dick. However, all of their film work is precious, and My Little Chickadee is an essential movie in both of their filmographies. If you find their other film work enjoyable, you’ll definitely want to add the new Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray to your collection, because it is the best presentation of the film ever released on home video. Check out the “Video” section below for more information on the disc itself.

USA/B&W-83m./Dir: Edward Cline/Wr: Mae West & W.C. Fields/Cast: Mae West, W.C. Fields, Joseph Calleia, Dick Foran, Donald Meek, Anne Nagel, Fuzzy Knight, Margaret Hamilton, Ruth Donnelly, George Moran, Willard Robertson

For Fans of: If you like the work of other classic film comedians, such as the Marx Brothers or Abbott & Costello, you owe it to yourself to give “The Great Man” and Mae West a try.

Video: Up until now, “The Great Man” and Ms. West has been woefully underrepresented on high definition home video.  Happily, Kino Lorber Studio Classics will release My Little Chickadee on Blu-ray on June 29th.  Fans of the film will be very happy with the presentation.  Although not noted on the Blu-ray packaging, My Little Chickadee has been restored by Universal Pictures in collaboration with The Film Foundation, using a 4K scan from a 35mm nitrate composite fine grain and a 35mm dupe negative. Comparing the picture quality of the new Blu-ray to the prior DVD (which I also own) displays a huge jump in clarity and sharpness. Scratches and speckles that were present in previous home video releases are non-existent here, yet the image does not look digitally scrubbed. Appropriate film grain is in evidence, and any softness in the image is true to the original presentation (I assume that neither West or Fields wanted to be photographed at a high degree of sharpness). In short, the image looks absolutely pristine.

The disc’s sound was also restored from the 35mm nitrate, and it sounds beautifully clear, with no age-related hiss. Finally, the disc is rounded out by the following extras:

• A new full-length audio commentary by film historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson — This is a well-researched, conversational commentary, but it focuses on the movie almost entirely as a Mae West vehicle. The commentators also discuss anecdotes from Mae West’s autobiography as if the passages were gospel truth (when it is much more likely that West reimagined incidents to display herself in the best light). The whole conversation is centered around West, with little mention of Fields’ performance and contributions. For a film that is a two-hander, it makes for a very lopsided overview. It’s like listening to a commentary of one of the Road pictures, focused entirely on Bing Crosby. It’s fine for what it is, but it comes off as a bit weird.
• The original theatrical trailer
• Bonus trailers for the Mae West films Night After Night, I’m No Angel, Belle of the Nineties, Goin’ to Town, and Every Day’s a Holiday
• Optional English subtitles for the feature

Streaming: At the time of this review, My Little Chickadee was only available for digital rental or purchase in standard definition.

More to Explore: On June 29th, Kino Lorber Studio Classics is releasing eight additional Mae West titles on Blu-ray, covering all of her film work from 1932-1940. Kino Lorber has previously released three W.C. Fields Blu-ray titles, the silent movies It’s the Old Army Game and Running Wild, as well as “The Great Man’s” final starring film, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. Happily, they also recently announced six additional prime Fields Blu-ray titles in 2021 and 2022. Two of Fields’ shorts, The Dentist and The Fatal Glass of Beer are also available on Blu-ray as part of The Mack Sennett Collection, Vol. One.

Trivia: W.C. Fields often re-hired supporting actors from film-to-film, because he enjoyed their company and admired how they played against him. Fields had wanted to cast Grady Sutton, who he had previously supported him in Man of the Flying Trapeze and You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man, in the role of Mae West’s cousin Zeb, but West vetoed it. She was only 5’0,” and she thought that Sutton would completely dwarf her at 6’2.” Fields broke the bad news to Sutton, but promised to come up with a good role for him in his next picture. Fields was true to his word, giving Sutton the plumb role of his daughter’s fiancée Og Oggleby in The Bank Dick (1940). It was arguably the best showcase Grady Sutton ever received in a motion picture.

For More Info: The best (and most accurate) biography of the Great Man is W.C. Fields: A Biography by James Curtis.  I’d also recommend Field’s intended autobiography, W.C. Fields by Himself.  One of the most interesting books on Mae West is Mae West: Between the Covers, edited by Michael Gregg Michaud, which collects numerous direct interviews with the actress regarding her film career. If you prefer video documentaries, I’d also recommend W.C. Fields: Straight Up (1986) and Mae West: Dirty Blonde (2020).