MY LITTLE CHICKADEE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 61, 23 August 1940, Page 21

MY LITTLE CHICKADEE

(Universal) There has never been much more to Mae West than hour-glass. curves and "cmupnsimismtm." Some people laugh when they see her because they are laughing at themselves for the deliciously risqué ‘inanity-which prompts them to go to see her. Others laugh neither at her, nor at themselves, nor at what she says; but’at what they imagine she might say without censorship; or at what their minds make her say at the suggestion of ears strained to hear it and yet always, at the last possible moment, disappointed. In the W. C. Fields. tradition of humour, which has spread beyond the boundaries of the Monroe Doctrine, there must be. some foundation of reality, although this reviewer does not believe he is the funniest man on earth any more than he believes the American newspapers when they report the world’s baseball championship. or interview the world’s champion hamburger-eater. It must be granted, however, that his nose holds in the world of comicality something like the place of Chaplin’s feet, and his hat is a saga in the manner of the Chaplin walking-stick or Chamber. lain umbrella. This may all be faint praise, but readers who want to find in this review some excuse for going to see two such famous stars in combination in "My Little Chickadee" will find that it is not entirely derogatory. After all, it was something to start the world inviting all its friends to come up and see it some time. And Mr. Fields no doubt finds it invaluable to own those piggy little eyes behind that porky fat nose, As names in capital letters these two can be what the world makes of them, and this reviewer will tolerate the verdict, admitting quite frankly that he likes neither of them. But as the stars of "My Little»Chickadee" they can be little more than a \sherry-glass waist and a bump on a face, for Universal have given them almost nothing on which to work their wiles. The gags are flat, the situations stale, and the recording too poor to cover the dental mumblings of Fields. Even if the gags were flat, even if the situations were as worn as a charlady’s knees at 80, the pair might still have made something of the picture if there had been more gags and more situations. But there’s only one joke (Mae fakes a marriage with Fields and leaves a goat in her bed for him) and only one situation of which they can make any good use (Fields farewelling Mae: "Come up and see me some time," he says). It is worth noting that a Saturday night audience in a Wellington theatre only laughed during this picture when it thought it ought to.