One Absolutely Happy Family And the fact that this is so, the main merit of the heroine of this story, Annie - a large, largely ridiculous person with a cool temper and at the same time a soft, childishly naive heart. After all, she, in fact, holds on her own shoulders all her poor house, morally supporting the incorrigible alcoholic husband Terry and son Alexander, whom she convinces from a young age of the need to study in order to escape poverty and achieve something in life.
Annie's family is worth more than anything. But it seems that an important place in her soul is also occupied by a tug she has been driving for several decades called “Narcissus”.
All this will surely encourage viewers to experience the most tender feelings towards Annie, which, no doubt, was initially sought by the film’s director Mervyn LeRoy and Marie Dressler, in the actor’s “palette” of which the bizarrely thick, sharp “colors” are mixed with the finest “pastel”.
And what a brilliant tragicomic duo Dressler creates with his main partner, Wallace Beery (he plays Terry)! And what tenderness literally breathe the pairing scenes of the actress with Robert Young (Alexander-adult) and Maureen O Sullivan (Patricia, bride of Alexander)!
In short, despite the fact that the “Tugwire Annie” is an ensemble film, by and large it can also be considered a master class from Marie Dressler.
However, like a number of paintings with the participation of this actress, its unusual, woven of paradoxes personality reminiscent of our beloved Faina Ranevskaya.