Prosperity

The big-hearted matriarch of a small town bank works furiously to keep her institution alive. Though beset by trial & tribulation, she teaches her community that there is much more to PROSPERITY than how much money one has in the bank.

Marie Dressler was Hollywood's Queen when she made this crowd pleasing comedy/drama in 1932. She is perfect as the tough old lady with a tender heart who fights for her son's happiness and the well-being of their family owned bank. Depression audiences adored Marie because she was one of them, blunt, honest, no-nonsense, nothing fake or phony about her. They rewarded her by making her the box office champion in the years before her untimely death in 1934.

However, it's important to notice that Dressler shares star billing in PROSPERITY with her frequent sidekick, the ubiquitous Polly Moran. This spunky, buxom little comedienne cut her teeth in Mack Sennett Comedies and was most adept at slapstick & physical humor. Together, Marie & Polly, like a distaff Laurel & Hardy, were formidably funny. Their several screen pairings, though seldom revived today, are comedic gems.

Others in the cast (Anita Page as Polly's daughter, Norman Foster as Marie's son & John Miljan as the villain) are all very competent, but exist mainly to showcase the Ladies.

Maggie Warren (Marie Dressler) is the hard-nosed matriarch who runs the family bank. His son John is marrying Helen Praskins. Helen's mother Lizzie Praskins (Polly Moran) is one of the bank's biggest depositor. Maggie appoints John as the new head of the bank. The two mothers fight over the wedding. Some years later, various problems arise and there is a run on the bank.

I like the part where Maggie and Lizzie fight over the wedding. If only they could incorporate the bank run with the wedding and have the whole thing take place before the vows. Dressler has a great presence. The two older ladies have good comedic chemistry. This is their movie.

This movie has a propensity towards tedium and confusion. Also a propensity to omit comedy from nearly every situation that required it. It was dull and annoying and unfunny, and raises a cogent question; who wrote this mess?

Aha! a quick scan of the credits reveals that it was written by the sister of Irving Thalberg, Head of Production at MGM. The poor woman apparently had no feel for comedy or continuity, and they stuck Marie Dressler into the abyss, hoping she could make a silk purse out of this sow's ear.

Marie Dressler was one of our premier comediennes of the silent-into-sound era; she may have been The Best, and it's always a treat to see her, even in dreck like this. She got no help from one of her former sidekicks, Polly Moran, who was shrewish and strident in an unrewarding role. I am awarding my rating of four based on the welcome addition into the cast of the great Marie Dressler.

... with the first two being "Reducing" and "Politics".

As in the others, Polly Moran and Marie Dressler play lifelong friends who fight like cats and dogs. Dressler is the more anchored and likeable one. Moran plays somebody you'd like to tie an anchor to and throw in the ocean. Her character is that obnoxious and snobby. But the contrast works. MGM didn't get comedy right very often in the 1930s - their specialty was drama - so this teaming was one of their rare hits in the comedy genre.

Dressler plays the president of a small town bank. Moran is one of her larger depositors, always thinking this entitles her to complain about this or that regarding the bank. The film opens on the year 1925 "when money talked and was on speaking terms with everybody" as Dressler's son John (Norman Foster) and Moran's daughter Helen (Anita Page) are about to get married. Dressler is going to retire and let John run the bank. And then comes the Great Depression with Moran withdrawing all of her money on a whim, causing a "run" on the bank, and ultimately causes the bank to close. These things happened in the Depression with people left without their life savings because there was no FDIC. Your average bank had zero protection for your savings. Without getting into the details of the plot, let's just say complications ensue.

I know that this doesn't sound like a comedy at all, but the secret to the Dressler/Moran comedies is that there is usually something very serious going on in the broader plot punctuated with lots of gags and broad physical comedy by the two leading ladies.

The odd thing about this film? The year before, over at Warner Brothers, Page and Foster played newlyweds in "Under Eighteen". There are lots of similarities - the two get married at the beginning of the film during the roaring twenties, then the Depression hits, then their marriage troubles rise with their monetary ones. And they weren't even the main characters. Did that have anything to do with them being reteamed here? Could be.

I am not familiar with Marie Dressler at all so I approached this unprimed without any preconceptions whatsoever. As a Dressler virgin, I found this difficult to get into, it feels like it was made for her fans.

A lot of us grew up watching Laurel and Hardy on the tv so when we watch them now it's with a sense of nostalgia. They're likeable because we feel we know those guys intimately. Because we like them we can relate to them and laugh along with them. However had we never seen a L&H film and stumbled upon one, to be honest I doubt we'd find them as funny. For this type of comedy to work, it's essential that we like the characters. Comedy is very much a two way process and so without knowing who Marie Dressler is, this just leaves the uninitiated cold. This might work for her fans but my excuse would be: It not you Marie, it's me.

This film however is not just comedy. It's also a full blown melodrama with a serious dark sub-plot - comedy from a dark place is always more effective and there aren't much darker places than The Depression. The subject of this film is the United States banking crisis of the 1930s. Whilst this is a really fascinating subject to study, it clearly wasn't fun if you had to live through it so making light of people's misery peppered with trite optimistic and patriotic speeches was not what people who had just lost their jobs and homes wanted to hear.

This subject was handled much better in Frank Capra's fantastic AMERICAN MADNESS made a few months after this one. That however benefited from being released at the same time FDR was just taking charge of America and also from a typically impassioned performance from Mr integrity himself, Walter Huston. That was also written by the great Robert Riskin whereas this wasn't which is a big factor. Irving Thalberg's sister's script is ok, Sam Wood's direction is a bit more pedestrian than usual but ok and the acting is ok but this relies too much on the appeal of Miss Dressler.