Emma, die Perle

My only two criticisms is that it's a tad slow and yet there isn't enough screen time for Marie. If this film doesn't make you cry at the end- especially the bittersweet "gift" she receives- you are made of stone. Marie may be a tad hammy, but you believe her, none the less. I can see why she was a star.

Marie Dressler was a fine actress who deserves to be better known today, one of the few actors/actresses that had a career in silents that transitioned quite well into sound. 'Min and Bill' being a strong example of what was so great about her. Clarence Brown was a gifted director in my view, but was a director that had a very uneven filmography (with some very good films like 'Anna Karenina' and also some average at best ones). Love classic film and certainly have no bias against sentimental films.

1932's 'Emma' is certainly one of those sentimental films and is a pretty good one. It is an example of the lead performance being a good deal better than the film itself, but there is actually in my view a lot more to 'Emma' than just Dressler (although she is the best thing about it). It is not one of Brown's best pictures and there are better representations of the rest of the cast, but it is worth seeing to see one of the best performances of Dressler and deserves more credit.

'Emma' isn't perfect by all means. The pacing isn't always great, with some dull stretches from having some extraneous scenes that go on for too long without developing or progressing enough. It would have helped if the story wasn't as slight as it was.

Would have liked a lot more development to the characters, only Dressler's and Myrna Loy's are properly developed, the others are too one-dimensional and Richard Cromwell's is especially underwritten. Cromwell also seemed rather bland in his role, being just there with not enough feeling.

Dressler however is superb, she shows off sparkling comic timing, radiates class, has such an expressive nuanced face that always tells so much and also really touched my heart. Her character is interesting, worth relating to and develops beautifully. There is more to the film than just her in terms of merits, Jean Hersholt brings a good deal of colour to his too short screen time and a very young Loy is at her most hateable (was very surprised to see her in this way). Brown also directs with enough control and ease.

It looks good, with some lovely atmospheric photography and sumptuous art direction. The script avoids sinking into melodramatic and has humorous and poignant lines. The story has enough parts where it is charming and moving, with the standout being the real tear-jerker that is the ending (more like the last 10-15 minutes).

Concluding, worth seeing particularly for Dressler, but falls short of being a must see. 7/10.

This is one of the rare melodramas from 1930's MGM that is really not outdated as others. It is a funny, but genuinely touching story of a devoted housekeeper (Dressler) who marries her wealthy employer, which does not settle well with his grown children. Dressler is just perfect and the ending is so perfect and bittersweet.

So few movies have a woman as the main protagonist, much less an older woman. Marie Dressler is wonderful, as usual, but the script helps a great deal, and the good, unpretentious direction. Old movies really have something special, a sense of compassion and humanity. Richard Cromwell makes a very good impression. It is sad that he lived only 50 years and was forgotten. One wishes Angela would reminisce about him. He had a very pleasant speaking voice. A voice is an instrument, and speech is music.

Has there ever been another Hollywood story quite like Marie Dressler's?

Is it even imaginable that in today's world an overweight, late middle age, and let's face it -- not very attractive -- woman could be the number one box office draw among movie audiences? But that's exactly what Marie Dressler was for two years running in the early 1930s. She won an Oscar for the 1931 film "Min and Bill" and received her second and last nomination for "Emma," the story of a nanny in a wealthy household who marries the father years after the mother has died in childbirth, and then sees the children turn on her when they become jealous of her inheritance. It's a short film (about 70 minutes or so) but nevertheless packs in a lot of plot. It covers decades and manages to work in a murder trial among everything else, and still manages to have moments that feel like padding. Poor Dressler is really put through the ringer. Everyone she likes best ends up dying, and she never gives us the catharsis we are begging for, which is to see her punch the spoiled brat children who accuse her of murdering their father in the face. No, Dressler stays good and true, choosing to see the best in them and never thinking of herself.

Dressler is a bit of an acquired taste. I found her Oscar-winning performance in "Min and Bill" to be tiresome. She mugs and grimaces, and that film gave her several "comedy" bits that were played up in an exaggerated, yuck-yuck vaudeville style. "Emma" has a couple of those moments as well, but overall her performance in this is much more varied and nuanced. I can see why she seemed unique at the time. So many actors in early sound films planted themselves in place on the movie set and delivered their lines like they were reading them off of cue cards. They didn't seem to be able to both move and speak at the same time. But Dressler is always doing something while she's talking -- she fidgets and dithers, and when she's not delivering actual lines, she's muttering and ad-libbing.

"Emma" is certainly guilty of being one of those sentimental melodramas so popular at the time, but for all that it does have some emotional force, and I found myself lingering over it for a little while after I watched it. There's a scene in which Emma walks through her house seeing the ghosts of the young children that once were, before they all grew up to be vile adults. It's a bit corny, but also strangely moving, and the whole movie is kind of like that.

Grade: B+