TILLIE THE TOILER
Starring Marion Davies and Matt Moore
MOTION PICTURE
September 1927
Among the varied assortment of pictures that graced the first-run
theaters on Broadway during the week that "Tillie the Toiler"
played at the Capitol Theater, "Tillie" was the only
one boasting of any considerable amount of comedy, and it was
received with general approval by the reviewers. "It's so
dumb, this picture, that it's funny," says Irene Thirer,
in the Daily News, who also writes that it "is
a fast-moving little comedy" which "doesn't further
art in the industry" and that "there are some mighty
low spots in 'Tillie the Toiler' and some mighty ludicrous ones."
Langdon W. Post, in the Evening World, thinks Miss
Davies would make an ideal Lorelei for the screen version of "Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes," for in his review of 'Tillie," he says,
"the search for a Lorelei . . . ended, as far as we are concerned
when we saw Marion Davies flap her way through 'Tillie the Toiler.'"
Going on, Mr. Post says "for two or three reels Miss Davies
simply delights the audience with her charming innocence."
He also gives Matt Moore credit for his work as the poor clerk
and pays a considerable tribute to Hobart Henley for "Able
direction." "A giddy, harmless and fairly humorous script,"
says Quinn Martin in the World, and, with a bow
to Miss Davies, says, "Here is, may I repeat at least once
more, a girl with the natural gift for pantomime, for clowning,
for making monkey business. Left to her own method of approaching
scenes of merriment, she is immense . . . 'Tillie the Toiler'
is . . . laughable in a common, cheap, gawky sort of fashion.
But it is laughable."