Top 50 Actresses, #37 - Mae West: "My Little Chickadee" (1940)

Movie Stats:
Released 1940 (USA)
American, in English
Director - Edward F. Cline
Stars - Mae West, W.C. Fields, Joseph Calleia, Dick Foran

Plot Summary:
Sassy, strong-willed Flower Belle Lee (West) is run out of town due to her association with an outlaw & told not to return until she’s respectably married, which prompts her to enter a sham marriage with con-man Cuthbert J. Twillie (Fields). Shenanigans ensue. Calleia and Foran star respectively as Jeff Badger & Wayne Carter, two of Flower Belle’s suitors.

Warnings:
Lots of sexual innuendo.

Bad Stuff:
The horribly stereotyped Native American character (Milton, played by George Moran) provides a heavy cringe throughout much of the film.

Cuthbert’s repeated attempts to have sex with uninterested Flower Belle, to whom he is “married,” not married, which both of them are well aware of, and the way that’s played for laughs, made me very uncomfortable.

West’s manner of speaking feels out of place in a film set in the Old West. She talks like a snarky film noir character.

Good Stuff:
I loved Margaret Hamilton (of Wicked Witch fame) as town busybody Mrs. Gideon. Her character is highly entertaining.

Flower Belle is the kind of independent, unashamedly sexual, strong female character you don’t expect to see in a movie from 1940. Her identity isn’t wrapped up in the men in her life. It’s refreshing. In relation to that, I liked how the film turned the ideas of marriage and respectability on their heads.

It definitely has its funny moments.

About the Performance:
I never saw a single second of a Mae West film before this. I knew that she presented highly sexualized characters, and so expected to be turned off by her. However, I discovered that there was a lot more nuance to her work than I imagined. Yes, she’s very sexual, but she uses her sexuality to poke fun at societal ideas about what makes women “proper” and “respectable.” That impressed me. I do think that she comes across too modern to be believable as a woman from the Old West, but there wasn’t much about the film in general that was believable, and regardless of that, I found her very charismatic. I can’t say that I want to run out and watch the rest of her films, but I admire her now.

Other performances of West’s I’ve reviewed: none.

The Verdict:
Originally, I was going to review “I’m No Angel,” one of West’s best-known films, but I couldn’t find a copy of it anywhere. Eventually, I had to settle for searching “Mae West” on Netflix. Only two of her movies showed up, and I chose this one because it had better reviews. I don’t think it’s a great film, but I liked it far more than I expected. There’s definitely a lot of gross, cringe-inducing stuff that one might expect in a film of this age, such as the embarrassing racial stereotyping & the men-are-horn-dogs-incapable-of-controlling-themselves offensive jokes. But, there’s also a strong female character who plays with the ideas of societal and gender norms. It was a pleasant surprise. Ultimately, I think most people would see the fun in this film.

I give it 3.25 stars.