User Reviews

The script really has nothing to do with 1930's "Min and Bill", but there are undeniably equivalent characters. Wallace Beery is Bill, a neer-do-well fisherman with a run down boat who has a taste for alcohol and a weakness for women who hang out in bars. Marjorie Main is Marge Cavendish, a responsible and respectable yet salty spinster who allows Bill to dock at her seaside emporium - she is the censor-scrubbed version of Min in "Min and Bill". Every time Bill gets a dollar in his pocket he drinks part of it and winds up getting the rest taken by a local barfly floozy. Then Bill's estranged twelvish daughter Virginia shows up, thinking Dad really cares because he put the boat in her name. In fact, he was just evading attachment of the boat by creditors. At first - loving the daughter but not relishing the responsibility - he pawns Virginia off on Marge. However, Marge and Virginia join forces to try to get Bill to clean up his act and become respectable. The side plot to all of this family drama has to do with a local merchant who underpays the fishermen for the catch they bring him. This is a scam that Bill is very willing to overlook for a price - at first. But then the post-Thalberg typical Louis B. Mayer formula of a little moppet (Virginia) making everyone listen to their conscience and coalesce into a conventional family unit begins to set in.

Don't get me wrong, I think this one is worth watching. For one, here the focus is mainly on Beery's character and his very tarnished angel antics of which I never tire. Plus it's great to see a leading man and woman look like real people rather than hand carved statues as is the case in the films of today.

A couple of things did make me wonder though. Didn't Pico (Leo Carrilo) get tired of working for nothing even if Bill is his pal? Bill would pay Pico some paltry unfair amount of their take and then retrieve even that usually because of some mistake Bill had to pay for. And why was Bill wearing a wedding ring all through the film even though it is made clear he is a widower? Just wondering.

It's easy to see why MGM had great faith in the pairing of Wallace Beery and Marjorie Main after their first team in "Wyoming". She's quite different than the early thirties mega star Marie Dressler (who was paired with Beery in two films, three if you count their brief scene in "Dinner at Eight"), but she's always commanding, even in minor roles. No nonsense but tender when being romanced, Main has a soft spot for Wallace and when he wants his long lost daughter Virginia Weidler to stay with her, she's more than happy to take her in.

Like the two films with Dressler ("Min and Bill" and "Tugboat Annie"), this is set on the waterfront and deals with the fishermen who keep their boats there. Beery's the typical good natured lug who isn't exactly the poster man for responsibility, but getting to know his daughter changes him. Main helps set him straight on many of his faults, but you can tell with her grin at some of his antics that she's amused by him regardless of his shortcomings. Main plays the part with a bit of a midwest accent so she sounds different than she normally does and that adds greatly to her performance.

I've always found Weidler to be a better actress than Shirley Temple, far less cute and cloying, and able to pull at the heartstrings without being manipulative. You really root for her to find happiness whether as the daughter dealing with her parents divorce in "The Women" or her heartbroken daughter finding love with a father who didn't raise her here.

There's also Donald Meek as Main's grouchy father (made to look much older than he was), Leo Carrillo as Beery's heavily accented sidekick and the unrecognizable Connie Gilchrist as a bar floozy, a role you'd expect for Iris Adrian or Marion Martin and are shocked to see her in once you recognize her. Sarah Haden is seen briefly as Weidler's aunt, another variation of her Aunt Millie character from the "Andy Hardy" series.

There's also some fun encounters with in the film, particularly a cat who meows and follows Beery around (because of his fish smell) and a rather aggressive pelican who steals the scene from him in several scenes. The mixture of humor and sentimental drama really works in this, and it's a true crowd-pleaser.