Chucklesome Mating Of Eagles

My Little Chickadee Is 1940's Great Expectation

Seemed to many, before seeing it, that My Little Chickadee must be the funniest picture ever made. Certainly stills gave such impression, W.C. Fields and Mae West (reverse that --- she's billed first) in resplendent costume, both looking for all of world like caricatures from one-after-another 30's cartoon as career of each (in Fields' case, health too) passed peak. He was still the bigger noise, in for more Chickadee gravy than West, according to W.C. bio by James Curtis. Fields and West were truly stars that were bigger than life, evoking more a flamboyant, circus-bred notion of celebrity. Fitting they should be prolific to cartoons, as they were sort of cartoons themselves, or etchings from Victorian-era books (in Fields' case, a real-life Dickens illustration). Where West hit a wall was public knowing she'd not do an act so ribald as what got her going when films were looser, if not gamier. That put her at from-start disadvantage to Bill.

Here's my softer attitude on comedians slipping: accentuate the positive rather than obvious negatives. Yes, Mae had much to cope with re censorship, but it's how this monument adjusted that ennobled her, and there's no better evidence than uneven struggle West engages with wily Fields, billed second but ranking first for laffs earned off Chickadee. Each is accorded routines not involving the other, the pair kept separate for most of run-time. West fairly strangles at effort to hip-wriggle sizzle into dialogue where none is there, any/all of suggestion erased before cameras turned. It makes for me a more fascinating exercise to watch her wrest humor from a straight jacket Houdini could not loose. Mae didn't care for Chickadee in hindsight. Probably she knew it represented swans singing, plus fact she under-earned Fields (his higher up-front plus a percentage). Bill had also thrived on radio, with Bergen/McCarthy, while she'd been run off the medium following too blue tilt with the monocled dummy.

Might Chickadee have done for West what Destry Rides Again did for sister discard from Paramount, Marlene Dietrich? Both had been labeled past-use stock, but from such refuse were comebacks made, and Dietrich's had been remarkable. Universal would present Marlene as a modernized Mae, with Destry, Seven Sinners, The Spoilers, Pittsburgh, and The Flame Of New Orleans frames one might visualize West being fit into. Part of problem was Mae turning forty-seven the year Chickadee got out (1940), while Marlene swung into Destry when not yet forty. West in no way could, or would, have done brawling required of Destry, her all the more belonging to gas lit past where compared with even slightly younger personalities. Fields, on the other hand, could age, if not gracefully, then at least dissolutely to joy of many (especially a coterie of critics) who embraced him as last stand against milking down of comedy. Bill was a bastion against politeness the Code forced upon farcing; he'd point out the protest in Never Give A Sucker An Even Break direct address to viewers. Fields would be the greater outlaw against propriety than West, only he'd protest not with sex, but lifestyle unbecoming to moral uplift. What restraint was applied to his act was curb of on-screen imbibe, the PCA watchful where drinks were poured in movies.

Fields was cherished, I think, for freedoms that once were, and now taken away, by proprieties imposed by the Code and adjuncts like the Legion Of Decency, latter a body to beg demolish by Bill for its name alone. He was early incarnation for comics who'd dare to loosen collars around humor. The treasure in Fields was his not blowing with winds of change. I doubt many encouraged around-forever Bill to "update" his act. To believe press at the time, My Little Chickadee had more comedy coming off the set than ever got on film. Columnists led with whatever outlandish thing Bill said between takes, not to mention ad-libbing when he filmed. Fields was never a working comedian in the customary sense, being a man naturally funny in any circumstance. I doubt there was ever sense of Fields' comedy coming from anywhere outside himself. His pausing long enough to declaim gave scribes a next day's squib, as in Fieldsian observation unique to him. My Little Chickadee's pressbook is filled with these, all ready made for publication in where-ever towns the show ultimately played.

W.C. Fields and Mae West have been largely absent from television, satellite or otherwise. TCM leased samples from Universal, these narrow as playlists on oldies radio. The four that Fields did for Uni, prolific once on TV and indeed theatres during the 60/70's, are doled out stingily now. TCM ran The Bank Dick in lovely HD, but You Can't Cheat An Honest Man was a decrepit transfer, even as Universal has a High-Def master on hand. Retro-Plex HD, part of Starz menagerie, had My Little Chickadee. I held breath on opener night in hope theirs would be an uptick, and indeed it was HD and a best Chickadee since days it played revivals on 35mm. A trivial pursuit of mine is ID'ing broadcast premieres of classics in HD. Stations don't bally them, nor is there mention at web pages, so it comes down to set of the DVR, and hope for happy outcome. Recent Marion Davies day on TCM yielded Five and Ten for instance, one I had checked whenever it played over a last several years. Twenty-five year old standard-def graduated this time (August 29) to HD and new joy in this venerable precode. Lassoing ancients from TCM, or outliers like Retro-Plex for My Little Chickadee, seem sole way of having them in HD. Peruse of schedules and then recording is worth the effort for goodies often yielded, a revisit in ways to long-ago scour of newsprint and TV GUIDE in quest for rarities.