Emma (1932) review - Marie Dressler is great, the kids are absolute monsters

If you have any soft spot for old Hollywood melodrama, Emma is 100% worth your time tonight. It is the perfect watch for anyone who loves watching terrible, spoiled rich kids get what they deserve, but if you cannot stand heavy-handed tearjerkers about maternal sacrifice, you will probably hate it.

Marie Dressler is the whole movie here. She plays Emma, a housekeeper who basically raises a bunch of kids, only to marry their wealthy dad when they are all grown up.

Instead of being happy for the old couple, the kids turn into absolute monsters. They think she is just after the family money, which is hilarious because she basically wiped their runny noses for twenty years.

The Myrna Loy Factor

One of the wildest parts of this movie is seeing Myrna Loy play a total villain. Before she became the classy, cool wife in the thin man movies, she was apparently great at playing incredibly nasty, selfish snobs.

There is this one scene where she looks at Emma with so much disgust you can practically feel the frost coming off the screen. It is great fun to watch, even if you want to shake her by the shoulders.

It does not have the fast-paced, gritty energy of something like Scrap Iron. It is also definitely not a lighthearted romp like Judy Forgot; things get dark pretty quickly once the dad passes away.

There is a really bizarre sequence on an airplane that feels like it belongs in a completely different film. The wind is howling, the actors are squinting, and the rear-projection effects are delightfully terrible.

"I don't want their money. I never did."

The husband, played by Jean Hersholt, is sweet but he dies so fast you barely have time to register it. One minute they are on a honeymoon, and the next, he is gone and the kids are calling the cops on her for murder.

Yes, they actually accuse this poor old woman of poisoning their dad. The trial scene goes on a bit too long, and the prosecutor is so cartoonishly evil he looks like he should be twirling a mustache.

Still, Dressler holds it all together. She has this way of looking incredibly tired, like her bones actually ache, which makes the emotional beats hit way harder than they have any right to.

If you are looking for a neat, perfectly structured masterpiece, this is not it. The pacing is totally uneven, and some of the supporting actors stand around like they are waiting for their cue cards.

But as a showcase for a very different kind of old-school movie star, it is absolutely fascinating. Dressler did not look like the typical starlets of her era, but she could hold a close-up better than almost anyone else in 1932.

Some random things I noticed:

• That family dog looks incredibly bored in every single scene it is in.
• The transition from cute kids to horrible adults is so fast it actually made me laugh.
• Marie Dressler’s physical comedy in the first twenty minutes is genuinely funny, especially when she is trying to deal with the luggage.
• The courtroom crowd looks like they recruited people straight off the street and told them to look vaguely annoyed.

It is a messy, deeply sentimental film, but it has a weirdly strong grip. You might find yourself tearing up even while you are mocking the ridiculous plot twists. 🎬