| Tugboat Annie | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Mervyn LeRoy |
| Written by | Norman Reilly Raine Zelda Sears Eve Greene |
| Based on | Tugboat Annie stories in The Saturday Evening Post by Norman Reilly Raine |
| Produced by | Irving Thalberg (uncredited) |
| Starring | Marie Dressler Wallace Beery Robert Young Maureen O'Sullivan |
| Cinematography | Gregg Toland |
| Edited by | Blanche Sewell |
| Music by | Paul Marquardt (uncredited) |
| Distributed by | MGM |
Release date | August 4, 1933 |
Running time | 86 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $614,000[1] |
| Box office | $2.6 million (worldwide rentals)[1] |
Tugboat Annie is a 1933 American pre-Code film directed by Mervyn LeRoy, written by Norman Reilly Raine and Zelda Sears, and starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery as a comically quarrelsome middle-aged couple who operate a tugboat. Dressler and Beery were MGM's most popular screen team at that time, having recently made the bittersweet Min and Bill (1930) together, for which Dressler won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
The boisterous Tugboat Annie character first appeared in a series of stories in the Saturday Evening Post written by the author Norman Reilly Raine which were supposedly based on the life of Thea Foss of Tacoma, Washington.[2] There is also a theory that her character is loosely based on Kate A. Sutton, secretary and dispatcher for the Providence Steamboat Company during the 1920s.[3]
Tugboat Annie also features Robert Young and Maureen O'Sullivan as the requisite pair of young lovers. Captain Clarence Howden piloted Annie's tugboat "Narcissus" (real name Wallowa), which was owned by Foss Tug and Barge of Tacoma and had been leased to MGM for the film. Howden's son Richard Howden is seen rolling rope during the credits.
Filmed in Seattle, Washington, Tugboat Annie used local residents as extras, including then-mayor John F. Dore.[4] The tugboat used in the film, renamed Arthur Foss in 1934, is the oldest wooden tugboat afloat in the world and remains preserved by Northwest Seaport in Seattle.[5]
The film earned $1,917,000 in rentals in the United States and Canada and $655,000 overseas for a total of $2,572,000[1] and made a profit of $1.1 million.[6]
A sequel called Tugboat Annie Sails Again was released in 1940, starring Marjorie Rambeau, Alan Hale, Jane Wyman, and Ronald Reagan, and another called Captain Tugboat Annie in 1945 starring Jane Darwell and Edgar Kennedy. Many of the publicity shots for the former were taken aboard the Arthur Foss, which had starred as Annie's "Narcissus" in the original film.
A Canadian-filmed television series appeared in 1957, The Adventures of Tugboat Annie, starring Minerva Urecal ran for 39 half-hour episodes.
