Margaret Dumont
Birth : 1882-10-20, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Death : 1965-03-06
History
Margaret Dumont would probably consider it a tragedy that she is best-known for her performances as the ultimate straight woman in seven of the Marx Brothers' films (including most of their best). By all accounts she never understood their jokes (offscreen and on), which is of course a major reason why she's so funny. Apart from a small role in a 1917 Dickens adaptation, she spent her early career on the stage, ending up with the Marxes in the late 1920s in the stage versions of The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930), and was given a Paramount contract at the same time they were. She played similar roles alongside other great comedians, including W.C. Fields, Laurel & Hardy and Jack Benny and also played straight dramatic parts (her chief love), but few of them made much impact - it is as Groucho Marx's foil that she ranks among the immortals, and she died shortly after being reunited with him on "The Hollywood Palace" (1964).
(archive footage)
A fascinating look at the most beloved comedy team in motion picture history. Exclusive interviews with those closest to the brothers supplement this collection of highlights from their film, theater, and television appearances and offer a compelling look at their lives both on and off-screen.
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Glenn Ford narrates this hilarious look back at the greatest comedians in movie history.
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Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
Self (archive footage)
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Mrs. Foster
A four-time widow discusses her four marriages, in which all of her husbands became incredibly rich and died prematurely because of their drive to be rich.
Persephone Updike
Jonathan Jones, a professor of ancient languages, comes into possession of an ancient coin. He translates its inscription, which gives him three powers: to inflict pain, slow down time or kill. Soon, he's pursued by enemy spies who have learned about the magic coin.
Noblewoman in Play (uncredited)
Mame Dennis, a progressive and independent woman of the 1920s, is left to care for her nephew Patrick after his wealthy father dies. Conflict ensues when the executor of the father's estate objects to the aunt's lifestyle and tries to force her to send Patrick to prep school.
Georgianna Fitzdingle
A TV star meets with opposition from adults who object to the opening of a rock 'n' roll palace for teens.
Mrs. Whitelaw
A gangster and his wife attempt to go straight. Comedy. Remake of the 1938 film "A Slight Case of Murder".
Mrs. Agnes Hawthorne
After beginning their train trip to California, a famous film actress and her daughter discover their compartment has also been assigned to a handsome biology professor. Comedy.
Mrs. Hendrickson
Lou Costello plays a country bumpkin vacuum-cleaner salesman, working for the company run by the crooked Bud Abbott. To try to keep him under his thumb, Abbott convinces Costello that he's a crackerjack salesman. This comedy is somewhat like "The Time of Their Lives," in that Abbott and Costello don't have much screen time together and there are very few vaudeville bits woven into the plot.
Aunt Dolly / Aunt Arabella
The story involves a rather odd flashback by Dale who is visiting El Dorado, home of her grandmother. She dreams about her grandmother's adventures including a romance with a cowboy who looks very much like Roy. Roy, of course, also exists in the present for Dale.
Mrs. Standish
Joe Davis Sr., headliner at a big nightclub, is visited by medical student son Joe Jr., who to Dad's chagrin wants to be a crooner, and soon comes between Dad and his girlfriend Claire. So glamorous dancer Bonnie is enlisted to distract Junior. Which does Bonnie want more, the fur coat or true love? Plot is a framework for numerous Ziegfeld style stage productions.
Mme. Traviata / Miss Rodholder
A trumpet player in a radio orchestra falls asleep during a commercial and dreams he's Athanael, an angel deputized to blow the Last Trumpet at exactly midnight on Earth, thus marking the end of the world.
Mrs. Allenwood
After breaking up with her fiancé, a gym teacher returns to work at a women's college, but a legal loophole allows him to enroll as one of her students.
Mrs. Croxton-Lynch
Circumstances force a womanizing playboy on leave from the Merchant Marine to ask two shipmates to help him by dating two surplus girlfriends.
Mrs. Willoughby
Hypochondriac Danny Weems gets drafted and accidentally smuggles his girlfriend aboard his Pacific-bound troopship.
Louise Harlan
The Dancing Masters is a 1943 Laurel and Hardy feature film. The plot involves the team running a ballet school, and getting involved with an inventor. A young Robert Mitchum has an uncredited cameo role as a fraudulent insurance salesman.
Ophelia MacDougal
A nightclub performer, jealous about the talents of an aspiring singer, tries to sabotage her chances at a professional career.
Mme. Langehanke (uncredited)
Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video release features a W.C. Fields segment not included in the original theatrical release.
Mrs. Culpepper
Two Army sergeants disrupt a bar, a party and an Army-Navy dance.
Flo Faulkner - Landlady
This package for comedy and the musical numbers has Luke Brown being drugged by the gangster operators of the swank Boathouse Inn; most notably Roxie a sexy pickpocket. Brown has information that Chow Brewster and his cousin have inherited $3,000,000. The owner of the Inn intends to keep Brown under wraps until they can drive Chow to suicide. He will then marry Chow's cousin before she finds out about her inheritance.
Mrs. E. V. Lawson
A group of children put on a show in order to prove that a down and out musician was the real composer of a Broadway show's songs.
Mrs. Hemogloben
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is a 1941 film about a man who wants to sell a film story to Esoteric Studios. On the way he gets insulted by little boys, beaten up for ogling a woman, and abused by a waitress. W. C. Fields' last starring role in a feature-length film.
Martha Phelps
A detective is hired to protect the life of a singer, who has recently inherited a department store, from the store's crooked manager.
Mrs. Franklin Evans
A woman-hater who inherits a beauty salon gets a new perspective on females after capturing a gang of thieves.
Mrs. Suzanna Dukesbury
Jeff Wilson, the owner of a small circus, owes his partner Carter $10,000. Before Jeff can pay, Carter lets his accomplices steal the money, so he can take over the circus. Antonio Pirelli and Punchy, who work at the circus, together with lawyer Loophole try to find the thief and get the money back.
Pantomime Teacher
Aspiring actress Louise Muban attends the prestigious Paris School of Drama during the day and works at a dreary factory assembling gas meters at night. She daydreams and "acts" her way through life, and her fellow students at school begin to suspect her stories are just that - fabrications. After Louise begins to weave an actual meeting with a debonair playboy into a fantasy of club dates and romance, her classmate Nana discovers the lie when she too meets the playboy. Nana sets a trap for Louise, and the result is an end to one fantasy and the realization of another.
Mrs. Bell-Rivington
Snooty heiress decides to track down her dead sister's kids, who are living a Bohemian life with their uncle in Greenwich Village. Once she finds them, she discovers that the Bohemian life is fun and free of the constraints her country-club life places on her. But she decides to take the uncle to court anyway to free him from the kids so he can paint.
Martha Arlington
Two men running a carnival airplane ride are hired to fly to retrieve what they think are photos for a reporter. Actually, they are retrieving diamonds stolen from a noted gem dealer. As it turns out, their plane crashes on the very estate of the dealer. Thinking the duo are police officers, the dealer offers his home for their convalescence from the accident. Meanwhile, the diamonds have been snatched by a kleptomaniac dog and buried on the estate. When the smugglers track down the pair, they try to convince the dealer that they are officials from an institution from which the two have escaped. Before long, the carnival fellows, the crooks, the gem dealer and his family, along with a platoon of cops, are tearing up the grounds to find where the dog has buried the diamonds.
Mrs. Abernathy
Two strangers, a man and a woman, are framed for a jewel robbery and thrown in jail. After they get out, they join forces to track down the real thieves.
Mrs. Penner
A singer finds another heir (Gene Raymond) to marry, to avoid the one (Joe Penner) her mother found.
Emily Upjohn
Doctor Hugo Hackenbush, Tony, and Stuffy try and save Judy's farm by winning a big race with her horse. There are a few problems. Hackenbush runs a high priced clinic for the wealthy who don't know he has his degree in Veterinary Medicine.
Mrs. Whitney
Julia and Hap are a dance team. He drinks and gambles, she succeeds for a while with the help of producer Alan.
Mrs. Wentworth
A young man falls in love with a beautiful blonde. When he sees her being forced onto a luxury liner, he decides to follow and rescue her. However, he discovers that she is an English heiress who ran away from home and is now being returned to England. He also discovers that his boss is on the ship. To avoid discovery, he disguises himself as the gangster accomplice of a minister, who is actually a gangster on the run from the law.
Mrs. Claypool
The Marx Brothers take on high society and the opera world to bring two lovers together. A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.
Woman in Audience Yelling 'Get Off the Stage' (uncredited)
A theatrical star, born on the wrong side of the tracks, marries a drunken blue-blood millionaire.
Mrs. Van Updyke
Tina (Wini Shaw), a singing Gypsy with a band of roving gypsies, is invited by Tom (Phillip Reed) to come over to his mother's (Margaret Dumont) estate where a lawn party is in progress. She brings along her friends and a whole caravan of gypsies take over the green, telling fortunes, singing and dancing. Most of the comedy is supplied by the kleptomaniac butler,Bellingham, (Eddie Shubert) and his employer who humors his nutty ways...as good help seems to be hard to find.
Mrs. Murchison (uncredited)
A managing editor sends a socialite reporter to spy on her boyfriend, mixed up in murder.
Mrs. Baxter
The Great Elmer and Company, two out-of-work magicians, help lovelorn Jerry Bronson adopt Spanky Milford, to distract him. When Bronson makes up and elopes, the pair are stuck with the little boy. But Spanky inherits a Kentucky fortune, so they head south to Banesville, where the Milfords and Wakefields are conducting a bitter feud.
Mrs. Fields
A college football team recruits a tough convict.
Sybilla Crum
Shortly after his arrival from South America to New York, Steven Humbolt is found dead in his apartment at the Savoia Hotel. Inspector Decker Dawes investigates the case and although the cause of death is described as apoplexy, Dawes is convinced it as murder, especially after he learns that Humbolt had been married fifteen times.
Wedding Guest (uncredited)
A polo-playing grandmother and her broke brood get back in the money with a Wall Street bet.
Gloria Teasdale
Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.
Duchess Sophie (uncredited)
Sarajevo June 28, 1914. Dushan, the Serbian mayor of a Hungarian town, has come to see the parade of Archduke Ferdinand. While there he runs into Geza, an old friend in the Hungarian Army and invites him to come to his house and visit him and his new wife.
Self
Short film made up of various clips showcasing the Cinecolor process, including a visit to a Marx Brothers film set.
The Queen of Deleria (uncredited)
Joe Penner as a incompetent crown prince in the middle of a revolution.
Blanche Ledyard
A Lothario tries to get arrested as protection from the gangster husband who has threatened him.
Mrs. Rittenhouse
The well-known explorer and hunter Captain Spaulding has just returned from Africa, and is being welcomed home with a lavish party at the estate of influential society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse when a valuable painting goes missing. The intrepid Captain Spaulding attempts to solve the crime with the help of his silly secretary Horatio Jamison, while sparring with the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his nutty sidekick The Professor.
Mrs. Potter
During the Florida land boom, the Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land and thwart a jewel robbery.
Aristocrat (uncredited)
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Charles Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned former family servant. He is himself imprisoned and condemned by the revolutionary forces there. His wife, the former Lucie Manette, is secretly loved by a gentlemanly wastrel, Sydney Carton. Carton embarks on a daring plan to save the husband of the woman he loves.
