Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Let's be realistic.

An unexpected masterpiece

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the oddest pairings in screen history is also one of the funniest. While their films helped Paramount rise out of the depths of the depression in the mid 1930's, they didn't work together until this one film. Legend has it that they didn't get along, but if that is true, they do not show it on screen. Sure, West's Flower Belle is out to con Fields into a bogus marriage to try and look respectable (if that is possible), and Fields is certainly no match in the looks department for her previous leading men like Cary Grant and Randolph Scott. But their comedy styles, while totally different, really suit each other, and both of them get opportunities to shine both on their own and together.The basic plot line has West as the scourge of the west, being forced from her town when she is seen gallivanting with the mysterious masked bandit, a robber of the prairie coaches. Town busybody Margaret Hamilton (wearing her "Wizard of Oz" Miss Gulch outfit) escorts West out of town, then stands up for her at the fake wedding to Fields aboard a train. Fields is anxious to consummate the "marriage", but West keeps distracting him, first simply by locking him out, then planting a goat in her bed! Hamilton gets to repeat her "Wizard of Oz" scream as well, hysterically reacting to Fields stepping on her face while he makes the mistake of trying to imitate the masked bandit to get into Wests' boudoirs. Fields ends up becoming town sheriff which sets up all sorts of great comedy bits as well.West has a great scene "teaching" class. ("I am a good boy. I am a good girl", she reads on the blackboard. "What is this, propaganda?") While this is far from a classic compared to the same year "The Bank Dick" (starring Fields), the presence of these two scene-stealer's is enough to keep the interest from waning. Ruth Donnelly, Donald Meek and Jimmy Conlin are among the many character actors who pop in and out of the action.

Mae West stars alongside W.C. Fields in this comedy classic from the 1930s about the Wild West. She plays Florabell who is disgraced by one town and goes to another town. Aboard the train, she meets up with W.C. Fields's shady character and they get married. Florabell's gentlemen admirers and suitors include the masked bandit who rides on a horse and robs people among others. Anyway, W.C. Fields called Mae West, his favorite co-star, probably because she was his peer. She knew how to write and make some laughs. The scene in the town school is quite memorable. Mae West had her own unique walk, style, and language all of her own worth watching. Want to know who inspired Madonna and Lady Gaga, I think Mae West would have been the first and unforgettable lady of shocking attitude. The film also stars Margaret Hamilton as the dreadful woman who hates Florabell. Hamilton also played the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. She was a brilliant character actress of her time and is worth watching here. In the days of the Great Depression and a coming war, I could see why people flocked to the theaters every weekend.

I'm not a Mae West fan so I can only report that I was underwhelmed by the script put together by West and Fields. To be sure, he gets off some good one-liners and she has a more restrained role than usual as the voluptuous female that she imagined herself to be, but it's all very silly and predictable.West seems bored with her part, tossing off her lines that have no particular wit or sting to them, in her familiar monotone. Fields, on the other hand, has an amusing scene with a goat that somehow got past the censors. He also wrote some very dry humor for himself, sounding at times like Mr. Micawber of "David Copperfield." MARGARET HAMILTON stands out in the supporting cast as the spinsterish woman looking out for Mae's morals and DICK FORAN has a stock role as a handsome eligible male interested in Mae. Joseph CALLEIA is the masked bandit, the villain of the piece, whose identity is no great surprise to anyone when revealed.Summing up: Should have been much funnier considering the talent involved, but Mae's fans apparently consider it one of her most enjoyable. At least Fields treats himself to some good lines.

Although My Little Chickadee did not turn out to be the comedy smash of all time, both W.C. Fields and Mae West got in enough of their own shtick to make it worthwhile to see. What I can't figure out is when both were under contract at Paramount earlier in the decade why Adolph Zukor never thought of teaming them.Probably because both of them were highly individualized and highly specialized performers. Both wrote their own material, but Mae believed her words were golden as she wrote them and Bill Fields was notorious with the ad-libs, even with a script he wrote. Like Dallas in Stagecoach, Mae West as Flower Belle gets kicked out of one town and heads for another town accompanied by one of the Lady's League in the person of Margaret Hamilton. She's been spotted by Hamilton entertaining the mysterious masked bandit as only Mae entertains. On the train she meets up with small time con man Cuthbert J. Twillie, a Fields pseudonym if there ever was one. She's convinced she's got a bankroll and she needs a husband to maintain a respectable front. Her gambler friend Donald Meek who looks like a clergyman and remember in Stagecoach Thomas Mitchell originally thought he was one, marries them on the train.As a husband Fields is as ardent as Bob Hope was in The Paleface with Jane Russell who also needed to get married out of necessity to a stooge. He's sure willing enough, but Mae's to smart for him as she's got town editor Dick Foran and saloon owner Joseph Calleia panting hot and heavy for her as well.My favorite moment is when Mae slips a goat into her bed and Fields gets a big surprise when he thinks he's finally going to score.I'd have to say the film's a tie in terms of these two icons trying to top the other. There's plenty enough here to satisfy fans of both Mae and Bill and the many like myself who love both of them.