Margaret Dumont

Acting

Margaret Dumont

Born — Died

1882-10-19 — 1965-03-06

Place of birth

Brooklyn, New York, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

61 titles

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 …

Known for

The Donna Reed Show poster
6.5

Revolves around typical family problems, such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, throwing a retirement bash for a colleague, and finding quality time away from the children.

The Donna Reed Show

1958

The Colgate Comedy Hour poster
6.9

The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show starred many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen, Donald O'Connor, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Ben Blue, Robert Paige, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Broadway dancer Wayne Lamb and Spike Jones and His City Slickers.

The Colgate Comedy Hour

1950

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show poster
6.4

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show is an American variety series hosted by Dinah Shore, and broadcast on NBC from October 1956 to June 1963. The series was sponsored by the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors and its theme song, sung by Shore, was "See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet", which continued to be used in Chevrolet advertising for several more years after the cancellation of the show.

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show

1956

Racket Squad poster
6.5

Racket Squad is an American TV crime drama series starring Reed Hadley as Captain John Braddock, a fictional detective working for the San Francisco, California Police Department. The show aired in syndication for a season before being picked up by CBS for three seasons. The series was filmed at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California, and was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, hence there was a pack of the sponsor's brand on Braddock's desk at the beginning and end of the episode, as well as occasional scenes of him or other characters "lighting up".

Racket Squad

1951

What a Way to Go! poster
7.1

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.

What a Way to Go!

1964

A Day at the Races poster
7.1

Doctor Hugo Hackenbush, Tony, and Stuffy try and save Judy's sanitarium by winning a big race with a finicky horse owned by Judy's boyfriend Gil. There are a few problems. Hackenbush, who was recently put in charge of the sanitarium, isn't really a doctor, he's a veterinarian.

A Day at the Races

1937

Film credits

1950s · 4 titles

1940s · 17 titles

Bathing Beauty poster
5.9

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.

Bathing Beauty

1944

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break poster
6.9

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.

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

1941

Up in Arms poster
5.8

Hypochondriac Danny Weems gets drafted and accidentally smuggles his girlfriend aboard his Pacific-bound troopship.

Up in Arms

1944

The Big Store poster
6.3

A detective is hired to protect the life of a singer, who has recently inherited a department store, from the store's crooked manager.

The Big Store

1941

The Dancing Masters poster
6.3

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.

The Dancing Masters

1943

Tales of Manhattan poster
6.5

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.

Tales of Manhattan

1942

Little Giant poster
5.3

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.

Little Giant

1946

Diamond Horseshoe poster
7.0

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.

Diamond Horseshoe

1945

About Face poster
6.6

Two Army sergeants disrupt a bar, a party and an Army-Navy dance.

About Face

1942

Rhythm Parade poster
9.0

A showgirl trying to advance her career must hide the fact she is caring for a baby. With N.T.G. and The Florentine Gardens Revue, Ted Fio Rito and his Orchestra, the Mills Brothers, and Candy Candido (The Man of a Thousand Voices).

Rhythm Parade

1942

Sunset in El Dorado poster
5.7

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.

Sunset in El Dorado

1945

The Horn Blows at Midnight poster
5.9

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.

The Horn Blows at Midnight

1945

For Beauty's Sake poster
10.0

A woman-hater who inherits a beauty salon gets a new perspective on females after capturing a gang of thieves.

For Beauty's Sake

1941

Susie Steps Out poster
10.0

After her father loses his job because of illness, adolescent Susie Russell poses as older than she is in order to get a job singing in a night club. Complications arising from the deception involve her older sister Clara, who works at an ad agency and the radio crooner, Jeffrey Westcott, whom she is in love with.

Susie Steps Out

1946

Born to Sing poster
5.4

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.

Born to Sing

1942

Seven Days Ashore poster
4.2

Circumstances force a womanizing playboy on leave from the Merchant Marine to ask two shipmates to help him by dating two surplus girlfriends.

Seven Days Ashore

1944

Sing Your Worries Away poster
6.0

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.

Sing Your Worries Away

1942

1930s · 24 titles

A Day at the Races poster
7.1

Doctor Hugo Hackenbush, Tony, and Stuffy try and save Judy's sanitarium by winning a big race with a finicky horse owned by Judy's boyfriend Gil. There are a few problems. Hackenbush, who was recently put in charge of the sanitarium, isn't really a doctor, he's a veterinarian.

A Day at the Races

1937

At the Circus poster
6.4

Jeff Wilson, the owner of a small circus, owes his partner Carter $10,000. Before Jeff can pay, Carter's 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.

At the Circus

1939

Duck Soup poster
7.3

Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.

Duck Soup

1933

A Night at the Opera poster
7.4

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.

A Night at the Opera

1935

After Office Hours poster
6.5

A managing editor sends a socialite reporter to spy on her boyfriend, mixed up in murder.

After Office Hours

1935

The Life of the Party poster
6.2

A singer finds another heir (Gene Raymond) to marry, to avoid the one (Joe Penner) her mother found.

The Life of the Party

1937

Animal Crackers poster
6.9

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.

Animal Crackers

1930

Rendezvous poster
4.9

A decoding expert tangles with enemy spies.

Rendezvous

1935

Wise Girl poster
7.1

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.

Wise Girl

1937

Storm at Daybreak poster
6.6

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.

Storm at Daybreak

1933

Gridiron Flash poster
4.8

A college football team recruits a tough convict.

Gridiron Flash

1934

High Flyers poster
7.5

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.

High Flyers

1937

Kentucky Kernels poster
6.4

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.

Kentucky Kernels

1934

Dramatic School poster
6.5

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.

Dramatic School

1938

Anything Goes poster
5.8

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.

Anything Goes

1936

Reckless poster
5.1

A theatrical star, born on the wrong side of the tracks, marries a drunken blue-blood millionaire.

Reckless

1935

Song and Dance Man poster
7.0

Julia and Hap are a dance team. He drinks and gambles, she succeeds for a while with the help of producer Alan.

Song and Dance Man

1936

The Girl Habit poster
8.0

A man's inability to control his flirting gets him into trouble after he uses his charms on a mobster's wife.

The Girl Habit

1931

No artwork available
7.0

Joe Penner as a incompetent crown prince in the middle of a revolution.

Here, Prince

1932

No artwork available
5.7

Tina, a singing Gypsy with a band of roving gypsies, is invited by Tom to come over to his mother's 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, and his employer who humors his nutty ways...as good help seems to be hard to find.

Gypsy Sweetheart

1935

Arbor Day poster
6.2

Truant officers mistake 2 midgets for members of the gang.

Arbor Day

1936

Wonderland of California poster
NR

Short film made up of various clips showcasing the Cinecolor process, including a visit to a Marx Brothers film set. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.

Wonderland of California

1933

Youth on Parole poster
3.9

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.

Youth on Parole

1937

Fifteen Wives poster
3.0

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.

Fifteen Wives

1934

Series credits

The Donna Reed Show poster
6.5

Revolves around typical family problems, such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, throwing a retirement bash for a colleague, and finding quality time away from the children.

The Donna Reed Show

1958

The Colgate Comedy Hour poster
6.9

The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show starred many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen, Donald O'Connor, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Ben Blue, Robert Paige, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Broadway dancer Wayne Lamb and Spike Jones and His City Slickers.

The Colgate Comedy Hour

1950

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show poster
6.4

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show is an American variety series hosted by Dinah Shore, and broadcast on NBC from October 1956 to June 1963. The series was sponsored by the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors and its theme song, sung by Shore, was "See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet", which continued to be used in Chevrolet advertising for several more years after the cancellation of the show.

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show

1956

Racket Squad poster
6.5

Racket Squad is an American TV crime drama series starring Reed Hadley as Captain John Braddock, a fictional detective working for the San Francisco, California Police Department. The show aired in syndication for a season before being picked up by CBS for three seasons. The series was filmed at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California, and was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, hence there was a pack of the sponsor's brand on Braddock's desk at the beginning and end of the episode, as well as occasional scenes of him or other characters "lighting up".

Racket Squad

1951