Margaret Dumont
Biography: 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).
Place of Birth: Not available
Birthday: October 19, 1882
Deathday: March 06, 1965
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Known For
Duck Soup
1933-11-12
Duck Soup
Overview: Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.
Genres: Comedy War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-11-12
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The Cocoanuts
1929-05-23
The Cocoanuts
Overview: During the Florida land boom, the Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land and thwart a jewel robbery.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1929-05-23
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At the Circus
1939-10-20
At the Circus
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-10-20
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A Day at the Races
1937-06-11
A Day at the Races
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-06-11
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The Big Store
1941-06-20
The Big Store
Overview: A detective is hired to protect the life of a singer, who has recently inherited a department store, from the store's crooked manager.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-06-20
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The Hollywood Clowns
1979-03-23
The Hollywood Clowns
Overview: Glenn Ford narrates this hilarious look back at the greatest comedians in movie history.
Genres: Documentary Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1979-03-23
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Animal Crackers
1930-08-08
Animal Crackers
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-08-08
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Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
1941-10-10
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-10-10
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Little Giant
1946-02-22
Little Giant
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-02-22
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Bathing Beauty
1944-06-27
Bathing Beauty
Overview: 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.
Genres: Music Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-06-27
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A Night at the Opera
1935-11-15
A Night at the Opera
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-11-15
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The Horn Blows at Midnight
1945-04-28
The Horn Blows at Midnight
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Fantasy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-04-28
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The Dancing Masters
1943-11-19
The Dancing Masters
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-11-19
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Stop, You're Killing Me
1952-12-10
Stop, You're Killing Me
Overview: With the end of Prohibition a former bootlegger and his wife attempt to go straight. Remake of the 1938 film "A Slight Case of Murder".
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-12-10
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The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell
1982-01-02
The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-01-02
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Rendezvous
1935-10-25
Rendezvous
Overview: A decoding expert tangles with enemy spies.
Genres: Comedy War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-10-25
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Diamond Horseshoe
1945-05-02
Diamond Horseshoe
Overview: 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.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-05-02
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Hollywood: The Dream Factory
1972-01-10
Hollywood: The Dream Factory
Overview: A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-01-10
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About Face
1942-04-16
About Face
Overview: Two Army sergeants disrupt a bar, a party and an Army-Navy dance.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-04-16
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Up in Arms
1944-02-17
Up in Arms
Overview: Hypochondriac Danny Weems gets drafted and accidentally smuggles his girlfriend aboard his Pacific-bound troopship.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-02-17
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Wise Girl
1937-12-31
Wise Girl
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-12-31
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Anything Goes
1936-01-24
Anything Goes
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-01-24
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Dramatic School
1938-12-09
Dramatic School
Overview: 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.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-12-09
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Three for Bedroom C
1952-06-26
Three for Bedroom C
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-06-26
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Youth on Parole
1937-10-04
Youth on Parole
Overview: 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.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-10-04
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Gridiron Flash
1934-10-06
Gridiron Flash
Overview: A college football team recruits a tough convict.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-10-06
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Reckless
1935-04-19
Reckless
Overview: A theatrical star, born on the wrong side of the tracks, marries a drunken blue-blood millionaire.
Genres: Music Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-04-19
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Fifteen Wives
1934-07-15
Fifteen Wives
Overview: 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.
Genres: Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-07-15
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Sing Your Worries Away
1942-03-06
Sing Your Worries Away
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-03-06
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High Flyers
1937-11-07
High Flyers
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-11-07
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Seven Days Ashore
1944-04-25
Seven Days Ashore
Overview: Circumstances force a womanizing playboy on leave from the Merchant Marine to ask two shipmates to help him by dating two surplus girlfriends.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-04-25
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The Life of the Party
1937-09-03
The Life of the Party
Overview: A singer finds another heir (Gene Raymond) to marry, to avoid the one (Joe Penner) her mother found.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-09-03
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Born to Sing
1942-02-18
Born to Sing
Overview: 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.
Genres: Crime Action
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-02-18
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What a Way to Go!
1964-07-31
What a Way to Go!
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1964-07-31
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Storm at Daybreak
1933-06-14
Storm at Daybreak
Overview: 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.
Genres: Drama Romance War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-06-14
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Zotz!
1962-10-03
Zotz!
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1962-10-03
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Shake, Rattle and Rock!
1956-11-01
Shake, Rattle and Rock!
Overview: A TV star meets with opposition from adults who object to the opening of a rock 'n' roll palace for teens.
Genres: Music Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1956-11-01
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Wonderland of California
1933-01-01
Wonderland of California
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-01-01
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After Office Hours
1935-02-22
After Office Hours
Overview: A managing editor sends a socialite reporter to spy on her boyfriend, mixed up in murder.
Genres: Crime Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-02-22
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Song and Dance Man
1936-03-11
Song and Dance Man
Overview: Julia and Hap are a dance team. He drinks and gambles, she succeeds for a while with the help of producer Alan.
Genres: Drama Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-03-11
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Kentucky Kernels
1934-11-02
Kentucky Kernels
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-11-02
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Rhythm Parade
1942-12-11
Rhythm Parade
Overview: A nightclub performer, jealous about the talents of an aspiring singer, tries to sabotage her chances at a professional career.
Genres: Romance Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-12-11
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Here, Prince
1932-10-01
Here, Prince
Overview: Joe Penner as a incompetent crown prince in the middle of a revolution.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-10-01
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Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults
2002-03-05
Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults
Overview: Second installment of deleted scenes, mostly musical or comedic, from Fox films of the 30's - 50's.
Genres: Music Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-03-05
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We're Rich Again
1934-07-13
We're Rich Again
Overview: A polo-playing grandmother and her broke brood get back in the money with a Wall Street bet.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-07-13
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Gypsy Sweetheart
1935-03-30
Gypsy Sweetheart
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-03-30
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Sunset in El Dorado
1945-09-29
Sunset in El Dorado
Overview: 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.
Genres: Action Adventure Music Romance Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-09-29
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Tales of Manhattan
1942-08-05
Tales of Manhattan
Overview: 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.
Genres: Drama Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-08-05
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
1975-08-06
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Overview: Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1975-08-06
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A Tale of Two Cities
1917-03-10
A Tale of Two Cities
Overview: 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.
Genres: Romance History Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-03-10
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That's Entertainment, Part II
1976-05-16
That's Entertainment, Part II
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1976-05-16
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For Beauty's Sake
1941-06-06
For Beauty's Sake
Overview: A woman-hater who inherits a beauty salon gets a new perspective on females after capturing a gang of thieves.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-06-06
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Auntie Mame
1958-12-04
Auntie Mame
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1958-12-04
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The Girl Habit
1931-06-27
The Girl Habit
Overview: A Lothario tries to get arrested as protection from the gangster husband who has threatened him.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-06-27
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Arbor Day
1936-05-02
Arbor Day
Overview: Truant officers mistake 2 midgets for members of the gang.
Genres: Family Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-05-02
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