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My Little Chickadee

Mein kleiner Gockel
Retrospective 2022
Source: Deutsche Kinemathek, courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC
After an affair with a masked bandit, Flower Belle Lee is run out of Little Bend and sentenced to stay out of town until she is a respectable, married woman. On the train to her next stop, she meets traveling salesman Cuthbert J. Twillie, a blustery drunk, and stages a wedding to him for show. When they arrive in the wild west town of Greasewood, the saloon owner and town boss appoints Twillie as sheriff – with the intent of putting his life in danger. While Flower Belle finds another admirer in the law-abiding newspaper editor, Twillie sniffs out the masked bandit ... “Funny, every man I meet wants to protect me. I can’t figure out from what.” With a Colt in each hand, Flower Belle single-handedly fends off a hostile attack, while graciously allowing her male traveling companion to re-load her guns. Just as the traditional sex roles of Westerns are turned on their head, so too are the genre’s strict plotting conventions, with a loose story that dissolves into a lusty Wild West revue. And with W. C. Fields and Mae West duelling it out as two tart-tongued combatants, every stretch of dialogue becomes a verbal gunfight.
by Edward F. Cline
with Mae West, W. C. Fields, Joseph Calleia, Dick Foran, Ruth Donnelly, Margaret Hamilton, Donald Meek, Fuzzy Knight, Willard Robertson, George Moran USA 1940 English 83’ Black/White

With

  • Mae West
  • W. C. Fields
  • Joseph Calleia
  • Dick Foran
  • Ruth Donnelly
  • Margaret Hamilton
  • Donald Meek
  • Fuzzy Knight
  • Willard Robertson
  • George Moran

Crew

Director Edward F. Cline
Screenplay Mae West, W. C. Fields
Cinematography Joseph Valentine
Editing Edward Curtiss
Music Frank Skinner
Sound Bernard B. Brown
Art Director Jack Otterson
Costumes Vera West
Producer Lester Cowan

Produced by

Universal Pictures Co.

Additional information

DCP: Universal Pictures International Germany