The Margaret Dumont Appreciation Thread

I was going to put this in the Pit under “Groucho Marx, You Sonofabitch,” but decided to take the high road.

I’ve been doing some research on my favorite dowager, the great Margaret Dumont (1889–1965). She appeared in some 50 movies between 1917 and 1964, only seven of them with the Marx Brothers (she was also straight woman to W.C. Fields, Betty Grable, Wheeler and Woolsey, Laurel and Hardy, Jack Benny and others). But what do I read in every recent article and web bio on her? This is from IMDB: “By all accounts she never understood [the Marx Brothers’] jokes (offscreen and on), which is of course a major reason why she’s so funny.”

To coin a phrase, balderdash and poppycock! That’s like saying Gracie Allen really didn’t know what she was saying to George, and just as unfair. Groucho Marx was a great comic, but he was also a mean-spirited bastard who hated women, and he was always giving out interviews saying Margaret Dumont didn’t know what was going on. I have old newspaper interviews with her where she explains in great detail the art of being a straight woman (being a Real-Life Dowager, she didn’t like the word “stooge”). How to hold for a laugh, how to react differently to different kinds of comics, how to pace differently for films and the stage. She was a professional and a great, under-rated talent, and the Queen of all us Incipient Appalled Dowagers.

—[glaring haughtily through my lorgnette at Groucho]
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[Mod Note Please note this thread is from 2001]*

Ahh, Groucho had his faults but I’ll cut him some slack in this case. Clearly he understood that it’s funnier for us to imagine that Margaret really didn’t get it; that she could have made A Night at the Opera or Duck Soup thinking they were really dramas, or mysteries, or whatever.

Of course Tommy Smothers isn’t really naive, Gracie Allen wasn’t really a ditz, and Margaret Dumont was as much of a kidder as the Marx Trinity.

I bet Margaret was a wildcat in the sack, too.

Of course she got it. Watch the dinner scene at the beginning of “Opera” and she’s barely holding it together.

I’m a huge fan of the Marx Brothers, and as such, have become a fan of Dumont’s. Her reactions made the Bros. antics that much funnier, the true talent of the straight-man (woman) showing itself: making the scene funnier without necessarily doing anything funny.

Groucho may have done Margaret Dumont a disservice by fabricating the story that she didn’t understand the jokes. But at the same time he made no bones about the fact that she was a magnificent straight woman, a class act and just as much a part of the Marx Brothers’s success as any of them (more than Zeppo, now that I think of it).

For my part, Margaret Dumont was a celestial presence on the screen, and the perfect foil for the zaniness going on around her. Obviously, just looking at the list of legendary comedians she worked with, her value was recognized by the best in the business.

She was wonderful.

I just got a glimpse of her in a Jean Harlow movie, the name of which escapes me right now, but Eve will know which one it was. She played a snooty society dowager who stood up to hiss Jean Harlow as JH was onstage trying to make her comeback after a suicide scandal (way too similar to JH’s own life). MD was only on for a second, but I yelled out “Margaret Dumont!” and made Mr. Pug jump out of his skin.

I also thought she was a class act, and an irreplaceable foil for Groucho.

She was an exceptional talent. Thanks for mentioning her, Eve

Less happily, many of my friends tell me that I resemble her. When pressed for details they are always evasive.

Well, really!

Redboss

I always liked Margaret Dumont better than than the Marx Brothers: I wanted to be a well-heeled society matron when I grew up. And (sigh) I am starting to look like her, though without the benefit of society.

Another cherished belief destroyed. Next we’ll probably find out that Symona Boniface was a wild party gal, or that Edna Mae Oliver was actually made up to look like the cartoon charicatures of her, and that she was actually very attractive in real life.

That was “Reckless,” Pug. Margaret Dumont was a freelancer, so she had to take bit parts in between supporting roles. She was flat broke at the end, bless her little cotton socks.

OK, I rooted through my files last night and found a newspaper interview she gave in the 1940s. “Many a comedian’s lines have been lost on the screen because the laughter overlapped. Scriptwriters build up to a laugh, but they don’t allow any pause for it. That’s where I come in. I ad lib—it doesn’t matter what I say—just to kill a few seconds so you can enjoy the gag. I have to sense when the big laughs will come and fill in, or the audience will drown out the next gag wiuth its own laughter . . . I’m not a stooge. I’m a straight lady . . . There’s an art to playing straight. You must build up your man, but never top him, never steal the laughs from him.”

Take THAT, Groucho and IMDB! No wonder the great ones hired her; they wanted the best! I aspire to Margaret Dumonthood. I must develop a monobosom to drape pearls over, and practice glaring through lorgnettes going, “Well, REALLY.”

who says there aren’t any role models anymore?

yes, comics are funny, just like pictures are pretty. the straight person enhances the comic, like a frame will enhance a picture. you need them both for a complete product.

Hey, Eve, if you happen to check back in–if you give a source for the interview (in which she denies being clueless about comedy), I’ll be happy to contribute that info to the IMDB, assuming someone else doesn’t beat me to it.

Mjollnir—Unfortunately, it’s an undated, unbylined piece from her Lincoln Center clippings file. It was syndicated by World Wide Features, though, c1940.

If I EVER finish the book I’m working on, I’d like to do a magazine piece on her . . .

Hail, Hail Feedonia!

Okay, I’ll stop - quit throwing things!

I think you’re being a wee bit hard on Groucho. I’ve always understood his remark that “Margaret never got the jokes” to mean “Margaret never thought we were funny” - which made her the perfect foil. I don’t believe he meant to slight her or imply she was stupid - from what I’ve read in his books and others, he loved her dearly.

Now, if you want to go after Fred Astaire, I’m with you. He was a right bastard to Ginger Rogers. He was the great “artist” while she was merely a somewhat talented nitwit. Faugh. Stuff it, Fred - she could do everything you could, backwards and in high heels!

With Fred guiding her every step of the way.

Frankly, I’m tired of that cliche, which implies Ginger was as good a dancer as Fred. She was not. People didn’t go to see her dance without Fred – but they’d watch Fred dance with a coat tree.

Now, admittedly, Fred was something of a bastard. But he was still the better dancer.

I also believe Groucho’s “She never got the jokes” was meant ironically. There does seem to be evidence that she did not understand some of the lines (especially the more risque ones). And no one has mentioned that Dumont was bald.

Sure, but he was just following the steps Hermes Pan drew on the floor for him.

Fred may have been the more innovative when it came to routines, but Ginger was every bit as good at executing them, whether in high heels or on roller skates. She was a wonderful dancer - she also sang better than Fred, was a better actor than Fred (she won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1940; his was “honorary”) and she had better legs.

The truth is, the movie-going public didn’t want to see Fred dance quite as much if he was with a different partner, so he grudgingly partnered with Ginger. I think he knew competition when he saw it, resented her for it, treated her badly and fostered the notion that she was merely an actress who could dance a little and looked good in feathers.

And as for Dumont being bald, well, Groucho didn’t have a real moustache then, either. So there.

She was also a better actor than Garbo, was she? But only half as good as Elizabeth Taylor. Or Luise Rainer.

Oscar doesn’t necessarily go to live with the best, I’m afraid.

Why, [sudden gigantic effort to avoid claim of hijacking] ** even Margaret Dumont never won an Academy Award !**

[sub]whew![/sub]
Redboscar

She didn’t sing better than Fred, who was one of the most influentual singers in the movies. The top songwriters fought to have Astaire sing their work, since his singing very often turned their songs into hits.

As far as acting, the Oscar is hardly a good demonstration. If you do count awards (both nominations and wins), Fred’s score is 1 Oscar nomination; three Golden Globe nominations (2 wins), 1 Laurel Award nomination, 1 British Academy award, plus honorary awards from the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the American Film Institute, the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Ginger, OTOH, had one Oscar and one Berlin International Film Festival (honorary) award. Also note that Fred started getting nominated for awards when he stopped dancing – the type of roles he was cast before that were not the type that get award nominations.

Remember, too, that the Rogers/Astaire movies always had a number of two for Fred alone; they never had anything for Ginger alone. She was certainly a competent dancer, but not on Fred’s level (an unfair comparision – no one was on Fred’s level) or as good as other Astaire parners like Judy Garland, Eleanor Powell, or Cyd Charisse.

Ginger was a fine comic actress, of course. And she did have better legs.

{throws hijackery caution to the winds}

And how about that Boris Karloff? Where’s HIS damn Oscar? I thought he did an excellent job in *The Body Snatchers.

I’m trying and trying, and I just can’t see how Ms. Dumont’s alopecia is relevant in a thread about her knowingness as a straight woman.

I love Ginger Rogers, but I thought the dancing Fred Astaire did with Rita Hayworth in, uh, one of the two movies they made together (I don’t recall which one I’ve seen) was easily on a par with everything he did with Ginger.