This isn't a great movie, certainly. But Dressler's performance is just as certainly great.
She acts with her face. And what a face! If being a movie star meant being beautiful and glamorous, Dressler had that - not at all. Her face was truly homely. But it was capable of a hundred different expressions, some of them quite subtle. She was, in a sense, the female Lon Chaney. You can see why she would have been a hit in the silents.
She can also do physical comedy with the best of them. Her knock-down, drag-out fight with Berry in his room is a stitch. Is that really Dressler in all that fighting? The story itself - lower-class mother who sacrifices everything to let her daughter have a good (read: upper-class) life was common in the 1930s. There are other famous examples, and they are all weepy. But Dressler's stoic performance of the woman who could not tell her daughter how much she loved her - and yet loved her more than her own life - remains as powerful today as it must have been then, though today it is usually presented as a father who can't express his love to his son.
The implied superiority of the "upper classes" is hard to take today, especially when you see how snooty these wealthy are. But that takes nothing away from Dressler's performance, which merited her Oscar even against some very tough - and very glamorous - competition.
She acts with her face. And what a face! If being a movie star meant being beautiful and glamorous, Dressler had that - not at all. Her face was truly homely. But it was capable of a hundred different expressions, some of them quite subtle. She was, in a sense, the female Lon Chaney. You can see why she would have been a hit in the silents.
She can also do physical comedy with the best of them. Her knock-down, drag-out fight with Berry in his room is a stitch. Is that really Dressler in all that fighting? The story itself - lower-class mother who sacrifices everything to let her daughter have a good (read: upper-class) life was common in the 1930s. There are other famous examples, and they are all weepy. But Dressler's stoic performance of the woman who could not tell her daughter how much she loved her - and yet loved her more than her own life - remains as powerful today as it must have been then, though today it is usually presented as a father who can't express his love to his son.
The implied superiority of the "upper classes" is hard to take today, especially when you see how snooty these wealthy are. But that takes nothing away from Dressler's performance, which merited her Oscar even against some very tough - and very glamorous - competition.