zardoz-13 Director Charles Reisner's battle of the sex's comedy "Politics" concerns a 52-year old woman's mayoral campaign in her hometown after she exposes the current candidate's corruption. Although Zelda Sears and Malcolm Stuart Boylan penned the screenplay based on Wells Root's adaptation, with Robert E. Hopkins providing the dialogue, the basis of this comedy is the famous Greek play Lysistrata about women who denied their husbands sex unless they outlawed warfare. At one point during her campaign, single-mother Hattie Burns (Marie Dressler of "Mim and Bill") advises her followers to stop doing anything for their husbands. Mind you, nothing about this early MGM comedy is subversive, though the source of all the trouble is a shooting in a speakeasy where the an innocent girl dies from a gunshot wound.After this initial burst of gangland violence, Reisner focuses on matronly Hattie Burns. She defies Mayor Tom Collins (Tom McGuire of "Steamboat Bill, Jr.") at a ladies campaign rally when he refuses to round up all the criminals who own the nightclubs and put them behind bars. The moment that she does this, Hattie wins the support of all the women. Meantime, what Hattie doesn't know could derail her campaign. As it turns out, Hattie's well-meaning daughter, Myrtle (Karen Morley of "Scarface"), has been secretly dating a guy, Benny Emerson (William Bakewell of "Gone with the Wind"), but her mother doesn't know anything about their romance. Benny and Myrtle are sitting quietly in the Lake City Park one evening when a beat patrolman spots them, and they discreetly leave before he can run them off the premises. As they are leaving, Benny and Myrtle encounter one of Myrtle's friends, Daisy Evans (Joan Davis of "Anna Karenina"), and she wants to accompany them on her way home. Benny has to drop in over at a speakeasy run by notorious gangster Jim Curango (John Miljan of "Apache Warrior"), who is Tom Collins' biggest supporter. Daisy tags along with Benny and Myrtle into Little Club. Curango has given orders to one of henchmen, Nifty Morgan (Kane Richmond of "Traffic in Crime"), to gun Benny down. Unfortunately, Daisy gets in the way of the bullet meant for Benny, and Nifty's second slug wounds Benny. Myrtle and Benny escape, and Myrtle decides to stash her boyfriend in the attic of her mother's boarding house without informing her mother of his presence. Curango orders Nifty to turn himself over to the police and tell them that he saw Benny shoot Daisy. The men of Lake City get fed up with Hattie's mayoral campaign because the ladies are more involved with Hattie than their husbands. Initially, the husbands ruin Hattie's first campaign rally after Hattie's campaign chairperson Ivy Higgins (Polly Moran of "Adam's Rib") bows to the wishes of her stuttering husband Peter (Roscoe Ates of "Freaks") convinces Ivy to quit the rally. The other wives rejoin their husbands and leave, too. Nevertheless, things turn out swell for Hattie in the long run. This 73 minute movie doesn't squander a second.

edwagreen There was no one like Marie Dressler. She could make you laugh, cry and do just about everything. What a range in acting ability this woman had. Had she lived longer, she would have really conquered the heights.She is just wonderful in "Politics," where as a plain, ordinary woman, circumstances become such that she runs for mayor, thus challenging the idea of a woman as an elected official, and trying to fight the mob in Chicago of the 1930s.The beginning of the film is full comedy and Miss Dressler is ably supported in that regard by Polly Moran and Roscoe Ates, both of whom provide comedy relief. The film makes a sudden turn to drama when the innocent Daisy takes a bullet meant for another young hood, who is the boyfriend of Dressler's daughter, nicely played by Karen Morley.Yes, Happy Days are Here Again is played in this movie, and that was even before FDR's successful run in 1932.

Ron Oliver A stubborn widow creates quite a stir when she enters local city POLITICS to run for mayor.MGM fashioned this pleasant little comedy/drama to showcase their surprisingly popular actress, Marie Dressler. She was beginning her meteoric rise to commence her reign as Hollywood's most popular star, a supremacy that was only cut short by her untimely death in 1934. Massive & shapeless, with a face that could stop a bus, Dressler embodied pure grandmotherly affection and the country gladly took her to their heart. She was also an excellent actress, equally adept at eliciting laughter or tears from her audiences, sometimes almost simultaneously. In the end, when cancer took her, the Mighty Marie proved utterly irreplaceable - truly one of Cinema's Grandest Ladies.Receiving equal billing is Dressler's frequent comedy partner, Polly Moran. Diminutive & buxom, Polly was a fine comedienne in her own right, and MGM kept her very busy in the early 1930's. Acid-tongued & brash, Moran was adept at slapstick and in every way was an enjoyable sidekick for Marie. Here, gentle Dressler plays Moran's benevolent landlady, uninterested in Polly's political enthusiasms until sudden violence prompts Marie into galvanizing the women of the community, with Polly giving her full encouragement. Each is rewarded, as can be seen in the movie's final moments.Stuttering Roscoe Ates appears as Polly's grumpy husband. Pretty Karen Morley is Marie's slightly duplicitous daughter, while William Bakewell is her wrong-side-of-the-law boyfriend; each are kept in the background to let the old girls shine. Also effective in very small roles are John Miljan as the local crime boss, Tom McGuire as Lake Port's corrupt mayor and lovely Joan Marsh as the tragic catalyst for the plot.Movie mavens will spot an unbilled DeWitt Jennings in the role of the Police Chief. They will also notice the movie poster Joan Marsh gazes at in her first scene. It is for THE STOLEN JOOLS (1931 - aka THE SLIPPERY PEARLS). This was a comedy charity two-reeler in which more than 50 Hollywood stars appeared, including Polly Moran.With a nod to Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the film's undercurrent is its sly look at the battle for equality between the sexes, as it explains in its preamble: "This story is dedicated to women - who have been fighting for their rights ever since Adam and Eve started the loose-leaf system."

boblipton This sprightly programmer, starring Marie Dressler, transforms the story to modern politics ca. 1931. Dressler and the women are anxious to close the speakeasies -- this was made during Prohibition. There is a strong cast of women, including Polly Moran, Joan Marsh and Karen Morley. The men are played by supporting comics, including Roscoe Ates, on whose voice Porky Pig was modeled.Dressler was an interesting character. A big legitimate stage star, she was one of the leaders of the strike that formed Actor's Equity. By the late 1920s, she was washed up, until screenwriter Frances Marion wrote a role for her, and by 1931, she was MGM's biggest star. Her character was a fat, good-intentioned, foul-mouthed harridan, and she could tread the line between comedy and drama as surefootedly as anyone in the industry.Charles Reisner directs without much visual flair in this movie. He relies mostly on cuts to move the story along, moving the camera only slightly to maintain composition.POLITICS is pretty well dated, but it remains a fascinating film, if only for the performance of Miss Dressler.