Each day during the month of August Turner Classic Movies is devoting its schedule to the movies of one actor or actress. Today TCM’s featured performer is Marie Dressler. During the three years until her death in 1934 she was Hollywood’s top box office performer. Not Jean Harlowe. Not Clark Gable. Not Greta Garbo. Marie Dressler.
She certainly wasn’t a great beauty. She was gravel-voiced and homely but she was down to earth and had great heart.
Tonight they’re showing two of Marie Dressler’s greatest pictures, Dinner at Eight at 8:00pm ET and Min and Bill at 10:00pm ET. If you’ve never seen it and you get TCM, don’t miss Min and Bill. It’s sentimental but it has a gritty realism that isn’t quite what you think of when you hear the words “Hollywood movie”. One of the greats.
