Ezmae Chang
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Allissa
.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
tavm
This is one of the few movies I've seen with Marie Dressler, and the only talkie I've yet seen of hers. This was her second teaming with Wallace Beery. He's her often-drunk husband who co-captains the sea ship Narcissus. Robert Young is their now-grown son and Maureen O'Sullivan is his fiancé. There are both some funny scenes and some more dramatic moments. There's no music score as this was an early talkie so sometimes, one may feel bored with some of the silences. The film meanders quite a bit though since the running time is less than 90 minutes, it doesn't wear out its welcome by much. Ms. Dressler would die about a year after this movie, but it's obvious by her performance she's not that easy to forget. So on that note, I recommend Tugboat Annie.
PamelaShort
Marie Dressler gives a fine, sensitive and very touching performance in this second and last pairing with Wallace Beery. The movie was one of the top moneymakers of the depression era, and beloved by the public as well as the critics. Based on the Saturday Evening Post stories about a very capable female tugboat captain and her alcoholic but lovable husband.The plot has the couple's son ( Robert Young ) ashamed of his drunken father, and Annie trying to make a living and trying to keep up a good family appearance for the sake of her son. Wallace Beery settles into his role perfectly, but Marie Dressler's acting is absolutely darling as she is forever exasperated by her drunken husbands embarrassing antics. Wallace Beery tried teaming with actress Marjorie Main in an attempt to recapture the chemistry he'd had with Dressler, but it was not a successful pairing. No one could ever compare to the unique Marie Dressler.Tugboat Annie is an enjoyable example of this beloved actress at her best.
bkoganbing
Tugboat Annie reunited Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler for a second time after the big hit they made with Min And Bill. Although that first film was more dramatic and Dressler got her Best Actress Award for Min And Bill, Tugboat Annie still has a lot of laughs and heart in it as Marie Dressler cares for her husband, child, and business which is running a salvage tug out of Puget Sound.Marie of course is in the title role and she skippers the USS Narcissus and works in a man's world. She lives on the tug with her husband and child Frankie Darro who grows up to be Robert Young. Beery is her shiftless drunken husband, but she's determined to raise their son to make something of himself.Flashing forward several years, Robert Young is now captain of an ocean liner and working for a former rival of Dressler's, Tammany Young who has worked his way up from the salvage business. Young is engaged to Tammany's daughter Maureen O'Sullivan, but he's not that crazy of his parents stepping into society, Marie doesn't fit and she knows it, and Beery is just Beery.Who periodically goes off on a toot and always lets his family down. However in the end during a crisis on the Narcissus, Beery does come through. It's why she loves and puts up with him.MGM put a little money into Tugboat Annie doing a whole lot of location shooting in Puget Sound. I don't know whether the cast got up there or their footage was done on the sound stage, but it certainly was blended in nicely with background shots.In real life Beery and Dressler hardly got along, then again Wallace Beery got along with very few people in the world. Still their on screen chemistry is not to be denied in Tugboat Annie which holds up every bit as good for today.
zog-3
The only film adaption ever done of the Saturday Evening Post "Tugboat Annie" stories. interesting depictions of the eating area, and engine room with its old triple expansion engine. the "Narcissus", was played by the real tugboat "Arthur Foss" which is preserved as a maritime museum after 101 years of work.
