Tillie Wakes Up

Of Marie Dressler’s many follow-ups to her box-office smash Tillie’s Punctured Romance, Tillie Wakes Up is perhaps the best of the lot, thanks to a witty and perceptive script by Dressler’s longtime friend Frances Marion. Neglected by her insensitive husband Henry (Frank Beamish), Tillie Tinklepaw (Dressler) takes the advice of a newspaper columnist and decides to go off on her own for a good time. Accompanied by her neighbor Mr. Pipkins (Johnny Hines), himself a hen-pecked husband, Tillie spends a thrill-packed afternoon at Coney Island (the real thing, not a studio mockup!) A nosey gossip and a brief brush with a gang of crooks adds spice to Tillie’s day out, and by film’s end she returns wearily home, where her now-attentive husband awaits. Though unstinting in its slapstick (at one point, a hung-over Tillie falls asleep on a peanut stand, which immediately collapses), Tillie Wakes Up also contains several poignant and heartbreaking moments, especially when the heroine tries to cope with her husband’s casual cruelties.