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

Edward F. Cline

Filmography

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022