Prospérité

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.

Marie Dressler is Norman Foster's mother, and Polly Moran is the mother of Anita Page, Foster's wife. Foster runs the bank Miss Dressler runs. When Miss Moran starts a run on the bank, Miss Dressler is confident until she discovers that Foster has used the bonds she keeps as a bulwark to back a building project run by John Miljan, and Miljan is a crook.

Bank runs were a theme at this time, with the best-remembered example being Capra's AMERICAN MADNESS. Director Sam Wood stages his version well.

It's the last pairing of Dressler and Moran, and Miss Page's last movie at MGM. This doesn't stop the usual mix of pathos and comedy that fans had come to expect. They were more than satisfied with the results. So was I.

In 1925, childhood friends Marie Dressler (as Maggie Warren) and Polly Moran (as Lizzie Praskins) oversee the wedding of their children, Anita Page (as Helen) and Norman Foster (as John). Before the celebration, Ms. Dressler turns the reigns of her small town bank over to her son, Mr. Foster. Six years later, the Great Depression brings many bank closures, and financial insecurity. Banker Foster is able to survive, due to mother Dressler's wise planning. But, Ms. Moran is worried about her fortune, and loudly demands a complete withdrawal. Other "Warren Bank" customers hear Moran's rant, and start questioning their own solvency. Soon, the family is in financial crisis.

Dressler's huge critical and financial film hit "Emma" had been released early in the year, and MGM had to have wanted to get a new Dressler film out as soon as possible. Dressler's 1931 hits, "Reducing" and "Politics" were still making a lot of money; and, Dressler had become 1932's US #1 Box Office Star, according to the industry standard list compiled by Quigley Publications. "Prosperity" certainly celebrated Dressler's status, but the production appears uncharacteristically sloppy, and rushed. The cast does well, considering. Some more care in direction and editing, and some retakes, would have helped… apparently, they needed it in theaters for the holidays.

**** Prosperity (11/12/32) Sam Wood ~ Marie Dressler, Polly Moran, Anita Page, Norman Foster

... 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.

What drags Prosperity down is the repeated insertion of low comedy gags involving Polly Moran, a successful silent-era slapstick comedienne whose humor didn't play very well with sound. Far too much footage is wasted in setting up lame punch lines or overdone sight gags. These tedious distractions, unfortunately, also tend to involve the film's star, Marie Dressler, who could easily have done without them in her otherwise impressive portrayal of a small-town bank president who weathers the storm of economic depression by a combination of ingenuity and what they used to call gumption. The plot involves Dressler's struggle with entangled financial and familial crises.

Her son is played by Norman Foster who was an able actor but had no distinctive traits to set him apart from a host of other nice looking young male performers. Anita Page, just past her brief burst of major stardom, is cast as Foster's wife in an undemanding supporting role.

This film is less successful than "American Madness," released the same year, which is also about the travails of a small town banker during the Depression.