Mae West: Sex with Harpo

MAE WEST didn’t like working with W.C. Fields. But fans continue to appreciate the “Old West” comedy they made together in 1940. This is Part 2 of 2.
• • DVD Review: Mae West: The Glamour Collection on Universal Home Video. • •
• • Five fine Mae West films thrown together in a shoddy white plastic package. • •
• • Dan Callahan wrote: The DVD set concludes with the semi-classic “My Little Chickadee,” where Mae West met her match, W.C. Fields.
• • Mae West: Sex with Harpo Marx • •

• • Dan Callahan wrote: All this Old West-style comedy really needed was for the Marx Brothers to show up and the whole world to break down into sex (Mae West), drink (Fields), and self-defeating puns (Marx Bros.), concluding in the end of life as we know it: the sexual congress of Mae West and Harpo Marx, as Groucho watches and W.C. Fields passes out.
• • Dan Callahan wrote: “My Little Chickadee” is like a movie you dream of but can’t imagine actually happening, which is why it’s always a little prosaic, a tad disappointing.
• • Dan Callahan wrote: W.C. Fields gets the lion’s share of the laughs.
• • Dan Callahan wrote: But Mae West gets in her innings during a schoolroom scene where she counsels some unruly boys: “Two and two are four, and five’ll get ya ten if ya know how to woik it,” she advises.

• • Dan Callahan wrote: Mae West did one more disastrous movie after “Chickadee,” called “The Heat’s On,” then returned to the stage and later to nightclubs.  …
• • Dan Callahan’s very entertaining article continues on Slant, however, this excerpt ends here.
• • Source: Slant Magazine; published on Thursday, 30 March 2006.
• • On Sunday, 9 September 1934 • •
• • "Me and My Past" was reprinted in Delaware Star on Sunday, 9 September 1934. Among other matters, Mae West discusses ("How Her Famous Gait Was Born with Ed Wynn and Frank Tinney") the development of her slow, studied, slouchy strut while appearing on Broadway in "Sometime" with Ed Wynn, a comedian who moved very quickly across the stage.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Joyce Haber wrote: Arthur, the West Coast replica of the Manhattan discotheque, opened on La Cienega on Wednesday night. Everyone was there except Warren Beatty, because almost everyone is an investor.  ... And Mae West. Mae West in the flesh. Mae West with a long platinum mane, in a flip hairdo. Mae West in folds of white satin, crystal-beaded at the neckline. Mae West with Reg Lewis, who was Mr. Universal (sic) in an unidentified year.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I'd have a little writing to do here and there, so he'd work mostly in the in the mornings. I'd come in after lunch... it was easier to for me to work in the afternoons. But [W.C. Fields] would be late. Or he'd delay shooting the scenes. Fields knew all the time what he was doin'. The director came to me one day and said that Bill was on the sound stage, and that he'd been drinking. I said if he's been drinking let's get him out of here for the rest of the day. I had to go down to work, and I saw him there, showing off in front of about two hundred extras. The director told him, "Tomorrow morning, Bill," so he left. Tipped his hat to me on the way out. He was humorous, maybe. We didn't talk too often. When you're a star, you don't get much time for conversation, unless it's part of a scene."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Variety mentioned Mae West and the cast of “The Wicked Age.”
• • Variety was not impressed with Mae West's harmonica playing in "The Wicked Age."  They were not amused by "Satisfied" nor the other songs she thought up like "My Baby's Kisses."  But the most startling element was her racy, tummy-tossing physicality.  
• • Variety reprimanded her in their review: "Miss West is getting away at $3.85 with something the [burlesque] wheels don't dare at $1.65."
• • Source: Variety; published on Friday, 9 September 1927
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • •
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — —
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 17th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past seventeen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,800 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,818th blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • onscreen in 1943 • •
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