Main Cast: Donald Dillaway, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Dorothy Jordan, Marjorie Rambeau
Release Year: 1930
Country: US
Run Time: 66 minutes
Plot
This early talkie melodrama features a waterfront hotel-owner (Marie Dressler) and her relationship with an area fisherman (Wallace Beery). The two are the guardians for a young girl (Dorothy Jordan) whose mother deserted her, but they lose custody of the girl to truant officers. The couple scrape up enough money to get the child back and into a boarding school, where she finds love with a wealthy young man (Donald Dillaway). Dressler won the Oscar for Best Actress in this 1930 film, the year's box-office breakthrough. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
Review
Min and Bill was incredibly popular upon its release, turning Marie Dressler overnight into the hottest (and most unlikely) star in Hollywood. Modern audiences may not understand the uproar over the film itself, but Dressler's Academy Award-winning performance is still every bit as lustrous as it was in 1930. Dressler, not a great beauty even in her younger days, nevertheless manages to light up the screen with her oversized, warm-hearted turn. She's a force of nature, a tidal wave that sweeps along everything in her path -- or would, if she wasn't paired with the equally imposing Wallace Beery. Beery keeps Dressler from dominating the film, especially surprising since her character -- and not his -- is really the focus. Together, this unlikely duo form one of the most loveable and endearing comic-romantic teams the screen has ever seen. Their chemistry is nothing short of remarkable, and they help to bring out the very best in each other's work. The rest of the cast doesn't stand a chance, although Marjorie Rambeau does manage to get in a couple of licks of her own. As stated, as a film Min doesn't stand the test of time so well. The mixture of the comic and the tragic is a bit jarring, and the blatant manipulation is often too bald-faced. In addition, some viewers will be made uncomfortable by the matter-of-fact manner in which some of the violence is played for comedy. But as long as Dressler and Beery are around, it doesn't really matter. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Cedric Gibbons - Art Director, Rene Hubert - Costume Designer, George W. Hill - Director, Basil Wrangell - Editor, Harold Wenstrom - Cinematographer, Frances Marion - Screenwriter, Marion Jackson - Screenwriter, Lorna Moon - Book Author
Min and Bill (1930) is a film based on Lorna Moon's novel Dark Star, adapted by Frances Marion and Marion Jackson.
The movie tells the story of dockside innkeeper Min's tribulations as she tries to protect the innocence of her adopted daughter Nancy, all while loving and fighting with boozy fisherman Bill, who resides at the inn.
This film was such a runaway smash hit that it and its near-sequel Tugboat Annie, which reteamed Dressler and Beery in similar roles, boosted both to superstar status. Dressler topped Quigley Publications' annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll of movie exhibitors in 1933, and the two pairings with Dressler were primarily responsible for Beery becoming MGM's highest paid actor in the early 1930s, before Clark Gable took over that crown; Beery had a clause in his 1932 contract that he be paid a dollar per year more than any other actor on the lot.
References in Popular Culture
Jack Kerouac, in On the Road, has his protagonist-narrator Sal Paradise compare Dean Moriarity and his second wife Camille to Min and Bill. Kerouac does not explain the reference, but it would be understood by contemporary readers that he was signaling that the couple had a contentious but affectionate relationship, with Dean the weak, ne'er-do-well and Camille the heart and soul of the relationship.
