Bringing Up Father

Polly Moran and J. Farrell MacDonald are Maggie and Jiggs. They fight in matters lifted from the comic strip, while their daughter, played by Gertrude Olmstead, captivates visiting nobleman Grant Withers. Marie Dressler, playing MacDonald's sister Annie Moore, steals the movie every time she's on screen.

George McManus created the comic strip this was based on in 1913. In it, Jiggs won the Irish Sweepstake and was now wealthy; Maggie wanted to move into society, but Jiggs preferred his old pleasures and companions... even when Maggie would comment with a rolling pin on his rolling home drunk in the wee hours. It was a constant battle of cultural assimilation, with McManus changing the background from from panel to panel, and once having a character from the topper strip climb down impnto the proceedings.

McManus died in 1954, but King Features kept the strip going until 2000.

Despite top MGM talent behind the camera - Francis Marion did the writing, Jack Conway directed and William Daniels was the cinematographer - the movie doesn't hold together, despite some very funny comedy set-ups and the irrepressible Miss Dressler.

Marie Dressler is the star, but hers is really only a supporting role to J. Farrell MacDonald who plays Jiggs, a henpecked husband who finally takes offence when his wife and daughter fail to acknowledge him while entertaining her upper-class beau and his parents. Polly Moran, another big female comic of the silent era, plays his wife. There's a few scattered laughs, but it soon outstays its welcome.