Min and Bill

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Louisa E I think the movie was cute with a great twist. The writing/dialogue is really good and funny. I'm very impressed with the director as the interactions and conversations seem very real. It was heartwarming but also shocking. A memorable film. For a comedy, it sure got dark! I love Marie Dressler. There is just something about her. Wallace is cute too. The girl is good but feels too old for the role. Did Marie almost call Bella by her real name Marjorie in the fight scene? The special effects were terrible by today's standards. The set designs were beautiful and intricate. The costumes were good at portraying rough times really well, with safety pins and holes. What with the hat in the school admittance scene though? Wowsers! I want the bull perfume dispenser in my home, stat. This should have been nominated over Trader Horn for Best Picture! Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 05/08/23 Full Review brad h Very underrated film. Good lead performances. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member The film was a runaway hit and earned Marie Dressler an Oscar for Best Acrtress in 1931. Dressler and Wallace Beery were a great pair. This along with the sequel Tugboat, launched Dressler and Beery to superstar status. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review steve d Perhaps good in its day? Ridiculous now. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review jona i Nice gags for 1930. Well-defined characters. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Ooof…people's tastes were very different in the early 1930s and films that were huge successes in the year 1930 just don't play to modern audiences. This is one of those films as it's humor seems very dated and the performances of Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery don't have the charm of timeless comic performances. You could not call the Best Actress category of 1930 particularly strong but Ann Harding is entertaining in Holiday and I have always had a soft spot for Norma Shearer so I would have preferred to have seen either of them win an Academy Award. The best films of 1930 were The Divorcee (1930) and The Blue Angel (1930) and those are films that are still worth watching today even as they have their significant flaws. Min, Marie Dressler, has a close relationship with ornery fisherman Bill, Wallace Beery, who she regularly spars with in order to overcome her fear of being in a committed relationship. Min raises the abandoned child of a prostitute, Nancy, Dorothy Jordan, as her own but when Nancy finds a husband to marry Min her biological mother returns and attempts to extort her for money. Min tries to keep her away from Nancy but ends up killing her after a fight. She then watches Nancy leave with her husband happily as she is brought in for questioning by the police. Dressler's performance largely hinges on the final scene in which she sadly watches the girl she has dedicated most of her life to taking care of leave her forever but her work wasn't touching enough to forgive an otherwise hammy performance. The work of Beulah Bondi in Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) or Janet Gaynor in A Star Is Born (1937) portray this emotion to much greater effect and both show more range throughout their performances as a whole. I wanted to feel the sparks fly when Dressler and Beery are together but they didn't have the sizzling chemistry of Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in It Happened One Night (1934). I was just uninterested in their discussions due to the subpar writing and over the top performances that lack the charm necessary for this sort of relationship to work. Beery's popularity is also a mystery to me because he's not handsome, has very little comedic ability and a real lack of presence. I wanted to see what made him such a big deal back in the day but I could see why his star has not endured in the same way as other 1930s stars like Gable and Shearer. I felt like he was rather stolid in his role as he had shades of Al Pacino in Frankie and Johnny (1991) but without the bombastic quality that made that character interesting. You need more out of a leading man in a film that is so slight in terms of plot and issues that it deals with and Beery does not have the dramatic chops to carry a film like this along. I'm not saying that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan could have made a film lumped with such a terrible screenplay work but I think the film would have been a more enjoyable viewing experience were the lead actors to be more fascinating or charming. The technical construction of the film is also relatively unimpressive as the sets all feel a little rudimentary and the look of the film is almost ugly. I hope for something with a rich, textured feel when watching something that dares to go so dark at certain times but this film appears rather flat and never really draws you in with it's relatively maudlin look. I understand the limitations that filmmakers had at the time but films from this era have the potential of creating something that has an almost golden sheen to it in how authentic it appears and this film just doesn't have it. The score and the direction were fine but relatively unimpressive and it's incredible to think that so many great films could produce in the years after this one. If I leave with you anything I would say that you should see Chasing Rainbows (1930) in which Dressler is rather funny in a supporting role. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Min and Bill

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