Marie Dressler was a most unlikely movie star. Ungainly, unlovely, not young, she nevertheless projected great warmth and an indomitable spirit. She had impeccable comic timing and some of the best double-takes in the business. And she was as adept at tragedy as she was at comedy. Audiences of the early 'thirties adored her.
The road to movie stardom was a long and rocky one for Dressler. She had been a vaudeville headliner at the turn of the century. Her first film, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), co-starring Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, was an adaptation of Dressler's stage hit. In the 1920's, her career foundered, and she was nearly destitute until her friend, screenwriter Frances Marion, got her back into movies in 1927. Dressler won an Academy Award® as Best Actress for the tragicomedy, Min and Bill (1930), and Emma (1932) which was also a drama, earned her another Oscar® nomination.
Emma is a typical Dressler character -- earthy and maternal, she becomes the housekeeper for the family of widower Jean Hersholt, and raises a bunch of ungrateful brats who resent her when she marries their father. By all accounts, Dressler was as generous and kind-hearted as the character she played. Two young actresses in the cast never forgot her thoughtfulness.
Child actress Dawn O'Day had played one of Dressler's children in The Callahans and the Murphys (1927). By 1932, O'Day was going through an awkward age, and was having trouble getting work. Thanks to Dressler, she was cast in Emma as young Isabelle. O'Day later changed her name to Anne Shirley and had a successful adult acting career.
Myrna Loy was a brand-new contract player at MGM, and she hoped the studio would offer her a new start, a change from all the oriental femme fatales and other unsympathetic female characters she'd been playing. Instead, her role as the grown-up Isabelle in Emma was yet another spoiled rich girl. Not only that, but the studio had Loy working on three films at once, running from set to set changing only wigs and costumes. Dressler, who had had her share of career disappointments, noticed Loy's disillusionment. "Get your chin up, kid," Dressler advised her. "You've got the whole world ahead of you." How right she was. That same year, Loy was loaned to Paramount for what would become her breakthrough role - the droll, man-hungry Valentine in Love Me Tonight (1932). Recalling Dressler, Loy would later write in her autobiography, "She was a delight, a lovely woman, high-spirited and caring. I was crazy about her. She inspired awe, too, with her robust presence and extraordinary achievements! In her sixties, she'd returned from near oblivion to become the movies' biggest box office draw, beloved as few stars ever have been. It seemed that she'd go on forever." Sadly, Marie Dressler died of cancer, just two years and four films after making Emma.
Director/Producer: Clarence Brown
Screenplay: Leonard Praskins, Zelda Sears, based on a story by Frances Marion
Editor: William LeVanway
Cinematography: Oliver T. Marsh
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons
Principal Cast: Marie Dressler (Emma), Richard Cromwell (Ronnie), Jean Hersholt (Mr. Smith), Myrna Loy (Isabelle), John Miljan (District Attorney).
BW-72m. Closed captioning.
by Margarita Landazuri
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