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“Novelties and Notions” Mae West Meets W. C. Fields 1 25 OUT WEST—where Mae has room for her “hip-notic” ways! WAY OUT WEST— where mighty Bill Fields can dodge with the best! WAY,WAY OUT WEST—where the funniest twain in hic-history meets and shakes every tepee to its baggy foundation . Daily Variety, February 8, 1940 Throughout the latter half of 1939, Universal Studios’pairing of Mae West and W. C. Fields in what would eventually become My Little Chickadee (1940) was big news in the industry. After being dropped by Paramount Studios and remaining off screen for two years, West’s contract negotiations were reported as a top story, routinely making the front page of Daily Variety. Her eventual contract signing was reported on July 1, 1939, in a prominently placed byline announcing “Mae West Signs for Pic with Fields at U,” stipulating in the blurb that both stars will receive “a fix sum for their work with a percentage of the profits” as well as equal billing “with West name on left and Fields on right.”1 From that time on, the quirky pairing continued to appear in regular updates as the studio found ways to keep the production newsworthy, often implying the two notoriously difficult stars were playing nice, yet were always on the verge of controversy. Blurbs in the publication suggested, “Mae West and Bill Fields are still pulling their punches, but for how long” (November 13, 1939) and“Grapevine has it that W. C. Fields plants a kiss on the cheek of Mae West every morning . . . Grapevine has no report on whether Mae turns the other blusher” (December 5, 1939).2 In one of the oddest publicity stunts, on August 19, newspapers all over the country picked up the story of Univer- 26 | chapter 1 sal’s arranged meeting between West and Dr. Frank Buchman, the head of the moral re-armament movement. As a supposed proponent of its philosophies (which,among other things,birthed Alcoholics Anonymous),West found time to playfully suggest during the meeting that Buchman also visit Fields since this“moral re-armament is just what Bill needs.”3 As the publicity shows, Universal promoted the meeting of West and Fields, two established provocateurs in Hollywood, as a possibly combustible but financially lucrative combination.4 By the time the film wrapped,the studio took out an elaborate eight-page full-color advertisement in Daily Variety on February 8, 1940, filled with bad cowboy puns asking theater bookers to “ride that showmanship saddle with Universal, pardner!”5 As the quotation opening this chapter conveys, the studio promoted the idea of the pairing as associated with controversial vices—sex and alcohol. West’s curvy sexually aggressive “hip-notic ways” are countered with Fields’s drinking, the “funniest twain in hic-history.”6 The ad shows them as bigheaded cartoon caricatures with a wide-eyed West in a formfitting saloon-gal gown and Fields (red nose half the size of his face) decked out in cowboy gear riding a horse over a mountain of money. Yet by the end of the ad, there is another drawing of the two stars presented in a less cartoonish fashion,suggesting something more realistic and sexualized. The image is a recreation of a titillating publicity photo and features West standing suggestively in a formfitting gown as Fields sits tightening her corset—suggesting the twosome as sexual partners postcopulation. In this manner, the ad exemplifies how the studio had to walk a tightrope when pairing Hollywood’s two most provocative comedy stars. The image of West and Fields as cartoon caricatures opens the ad as a way to nullify the sexual threat, but the final image harkens to something more scandalous. Despite the censorship restrictions of the Breen Office, the screen pairing of West and Fields could still imply something dangerous to society, the sexual union of the king and queen of controversial comedy.7 At the time of the production of My Little Chickadee, West was friendly when discussing her costar to the press, recognizing that they shared a status as provocateurs in Hollywood. In promoting the film, she insisted to the New York Times that she enjoyed working with Fields, and, when it comes to comedy ,“Our styles don’t conflict.”8 Such contentions might have been to cover up a notoriously troubled preproduction and shoot, where West feared Fields’s drinking and contractually stipulated that he be removed from the set if he appeared...

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