Margaret Dumont Movies

This salute to the famous comedy team of the Marx Brothers is narrated by actor/director Gene Kelly. Shown are clips from many of their best-known films, including Duck Soup, Horse Feathers and Animal Crackers. Also shown are rare outtakes from their films and interviews with them, in addition to reminiscences and tributes by Dick Cavett, Robert Klein, David Steinberg and others. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

TV actor Tom Poston stars as Prof. Jonathan Jones in this early feature-film appearance, a standard comedy-fantasy oriented to the youngsters. The good professor has come into possession of "zotz," a coin that has three magical properties. It can either cause intense pain if its bearer points an accusing finger at an intended victim or it can make things move in slow-motion, with the right command. If the accusatory finger and the command are used simultaneously, the victim dies. Naturally, just about everyone wants this coin. The hapless professor is soon involved in problems at school, at the Pentagon, and worse yet, with a group of commie agents who have their own designs on the coin. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The endearingly awful Shake, Rattle and Rock! serves as a showcase for four top rock-and-roll talents of the 1950s. Fats Domino heads the cast as "himself", performing "I'm in Love Again", "Ain't it a Shame" and "Honey Chile". Likewise, Joe Turner offers renditions of "Feelin' Happy" and "Lipstick, Powder and Paint", while Tommy Charles and Annita Ray let loose with "Sweet Love on My Mind" and "Rockin' on Saturday Night". The plot is one of the oldest known to man: a quartet of buttinsky do-gooders, played by screen veterans Douglass Dumbrille, Margaret Dumont, Raymond Hatton and Percy Helton, try to impose a ban on rock-and-roll, while TV producer Touch (later Mike) Connors does his best to convince the "squares" that the new musical style is harmless fun. Sterling Holloway is a riot as Connors' jive-talking assistant, who lays on the hipster slang so heavily in one scene that he requires English subtitles! Shake, Rattle and Rock was (sort of) remade for TV in 1994 as one of Showtime Cable's "Rebel Highway" entries. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An aging movie star and her precocious daughter hide out in the train berth of a scientist during a cross-country journey from New York to LA in this romantic comedy. The whole mess begins when the actress receives an urgent wire demanding that she immediately return to Hollywood to star in a new film. She cares little about the project, but still obeys. Unfortunately, the train is full so she has no choice but to stow away in a sleeping compartment. The berth belongs to an introverted, scholarly biochemistry professor from Harvard who boards in Chicago. Creating more havoc upon the speeding train is the actress's eternally patient agent. As the train chugs westward, romance and comedy ensues. The leading lady, Gloria Swanson, made this farce right after making her classic Sunset Blvd. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The wonderful newfangled world of television provides the backdrop for this musical. The tale begins as an advertising executive has a misunderstanding with his employer's wife and ends up fired. Now her family is left penniless until her younger sister begins impersonating a nightclub singer and becomes a television star. Songs include: "When You're Near," "When Does Love Begin?" (Hal Borne, sung by David Bruce), "For the Right Guy," "I'm So Lonely" (Borne), and "Bob-Bob That Did It" (Borne, Eddie Cherkose). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The real Diamond Horseshoe was a Las Vegas nightclub created by impresario Billy Rose, which spotlighted old-time stars from the early 20th century recreating the songs and skits that had made them great. Rose allowed 20th Century-Fox to use the name "Diamond Horseshoe" for a Technicolor musical, but only on the proviso that Rose's name be included in the title. Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe does have the occasional old-timer specialty, but for the most part the plot concentrates on Betty Grable, a young entertainer who romances would-be songwriter Dick Haymes. The affair is frowned upon by Haymes' father (William Gaxton), the manager of the Diamond Horseshoe, who is determined that his son pursue a medical career. The predictability of the storyline is redeemed by Haymes' rendition of the song hit "The More I See You", and by the comedy turns of Phil Silvers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though Jack Benny made a cottage industry out of joking about the purported rottenness of his 1945 vehicle Horn Blows at Midnght, the film is in fact a delightful comedy-fantasy-certainly not Benny's best film, but far from his worst. While dozing off during a radio broadcast, studio musician Athaniel (Benny) dreams he's a trumpet player in Heaven's celestial orchestra. At the behest of glamorous angel Elizabeth (Alexis Smith), Athaniel is brought into the lavish chambers of The Chief (Guy Kibbee), who has a job for our hapless hero. It seems that The Front Office, dissatisfied with the state of things on planet Earth ("just a six-day job"), has decided to destroy the tiny globe. Athaniel is to go down to New York City and blow his trumpet at midnight, thereby heralding the end of the world. Unfortunately he botches the job and remains stuck on earth as a "fallen angel" along with previous Heavenly dropouts Osidro (Allyn Joslyn) and and Doremus (John Alexander). Having persuaded The Chief to give Athaniel a second chance, Elizabeth herself comes to Earth to make sure that her sweetheart successfully completes his mission. Alas, the impoverished Athaniel has used his precious trumpet to pay for a meal, thereby setting off a chain reaction of comic complications, culminating with a Harold Lloyd-like climax wherein Athaniel is but one of six people precariously dangling from a skyscraper ledge. Evidence exists that the "dream" framework and slapstick finale of Horn Blows at Midnight were last-minute additions: A 1949 radio version of the Sam Hellman-James V. Kern screenplay is quite different, with a more sentimental and "meaningful" finale. Whatever the case, the screen version of Horn Blows at Midnight delivers plenty of laughs for Benny fans and casual viewers alike. Alas, the film proved a box-office disappointment, which was injurious for Benny's film career but a boon to his radio and TV shows, which thrived on derisive Horn Blows at Midnight jokes for the next two decades! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ostensibly a vehicle for RKO Radio's new comedy duo Wally Brown and Alan Carney, Seven Days Ashore actually casts Brown & Carney in subordinate roles. The plotline is carried by furloughed sailor Dan Arland (Gordon Oliver), who while docked in San Francisco gets mixed up with three amorous females. Hoping to avoid breach-of-promise suits from two of the girls, Arland palms them off to his pals Monty (Brown) and Orville (Carney), while he devotes his time to debutante Annabelle (played by future news journalist Elaine Shepard). One of the "castaway" girls is portrayed by Virginia Mayo, on the verge of stardom. Musical relief is provided by Dooley Wilson ("Sam" in Casablanca), Freddie Slack and His Orchestra, and the zany "corn aggregation" led by Freddie "Schnickelfritz" Fisher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

During the '40s, Monogram ground out musical comedies by the ton, most of them starring their resident song-and-dance cutie Gale Storm. In Rhythm Parade, Storm plays a young, aspiring singer named Sally, who through a series of misunderstandings is assumed to be the mother of an apparently abandoned baby. This plays right into the hands of Sally's bitchy rival Connie (Jan Wiley), who hopes to ruin the girl's career by fomenting a scandal. By the end of the requisite 68 minutes, all is straightened out, with time left over for 9 musical numbers, some performed by such guest acts as The Mills Bros. and Ted Fio Rito Orchestra. Rhythm Parade was produced in conjunction with Hollywood's Florentine Gardens nightclub, run by one Nils T. Granlund (aka N.T.G.), who appears in the film as "Granny". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the 1953 musical film of the same title, About Face is a 43 minute Hal Roach "Streamliner." Sgt. Doubleday (William Tracy), the man with the photographic memory, and his former topkick Sgt. Ames (Joe Sawyer), go on a night on the town. After accidentally sparking a barroom brawl, our heroes crash a society party overseen by perennial Marx Brothers foil Margaret Dumont. The evening is capped by a wild car chase. Marjorie Lord and Veda Ann Borg provide the scenic attractions in this old-fashioned slapsticker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

How could anyone resist a 1940s film starring Bert Lahr, June Havoc, Buddy Ebsen and Patsy Kelly-even a film as relentlessly silly as RKO Radio's Sing Your Worries Away? Lahr is cast as zany songwriter Chow Brewster, the sweetheart of cigarette girl Carol (Dorothy Lovett). Unbeknownst to eveyone but gangster Smiley Clark (Sam Levene), Carol has fallen heir to three million dollars. Clark intends to worry Brewster into committing suicide, then claim Carol as his bride. Things get hairy when feckless Tommy Jones (Buddy Ebsen) is accused of Brewster's death-this despite the fact that Brewster is alive and (sort of) well. The film moves bumpily but hilariously to a wild climax in which Brewster and Jones desperately try to escape being ground up in an ice-making machine! Patsy Kelly does her usual loud overacting, while June Havoc is amusingly cast as a stripteaser (the real-life profession of Havoc's celebrated sister Gypsy Rose Lee). Sing Your Worries Away is a partial remake of the 1935 RKO Radio comedy To Beat the Band, which made even less sense than the 1942 film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

W.C. Fields heads to Esoteric studios to pitch a story idea to producer Franklin Pangborn. The producer wants to make a conventional romantic musical starring Fields' niece, teen-aged soprano Gloria Jean, but "The Great Man" has other ideas. As Pangborn sits in dumbfounded silence, Fields unravels an incoherent farrago which begins with him travelling to a Russian colony in Mexico--by way of an airliner with an open observation platform. Fields dives from the plane when his precious flask of gin falls overboard; he lands safely at the mountaintop mansion of the formidable Mrs. Hemoglobin (Margaret Dumont). Playing a kissing game with Hemoglobin's beauteous daughter (Susan Miller), who has never seen a man before, Fields decides to make a quick exit when Mama wants to get in on the game too. Reunited with Gloria Jean in the Russian colony, Fields learns that Mrs. Hemoglobin is worth millions, so he climbs back up the mountain, ignoring such obstacles as a displaced African gorilla. Disposing of his rival Leon Errol, Fields is about to wed Mrs. Hemoglobin, but is talked out of it at the last moment by Gloria Jean. At this point in the narrative, producer Pangborn can stand no more. He tells Fields to take his nonsensical screenplay and vacate the premises. After a brief episode at a soda fountain ("This scene was supposed to be in a saloon, but the censors made us cut it out"), Fields drives off to new adventures with his niece--but not before a zany slapstick car-chase finale, prompted by Fields' mistaken belief that he's rushing a corpulent middle-aged lady to the maternity hospital. W. C. Fields' original screenplay for Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (written under the fanciful pseudonym of Otis Criblecoblis) made a lot more sense than what ended up on screen, but Fields' extended absences from the studio, coupled with Universal's desire to reshape the film into a vehicle for their new star Gloria Jean, necessitated a complete restructuring of the plot. While hardly Fields' best or most representative film, Sucker is an excellent example of the sort of nonsensical "nut" humor in vogue in 1941 thanks to Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin'. And, occasionally, the film stands still long enough to allow W. C. Fields to mutter a priceless aside or toss off a perfectly timed double-take. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the Clare Booth Luce play of the same name, this MGM comedy is justly famous for its all-female cast and deft direction by George Cukor. The plot centers on a group of gossipy high-society women who spend their days at the beauty salon and haunting fashion shows. The sweet, happily wedded Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) finds her marriage in trouble when shopgirl Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford) gets her hooks into Mary's man. Naturally, this situation becomes the hot talk amongst Mary's catty friends, especially the scandalmonger Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell), who has little room to talk -- she finds herself on a train to Reno and headed for divorce right after Mary. But with a bit of guts and daring, Mary snatches her man right back from Crystal's clutches. Snappy, witty dialogue, much of it courtesy of veteran screenwriter Anita Loos, helps send this film's humor over the top. So do the characterizations -- Crawford is as venomous as they come, and this was Russell's first chance to show what she could do as a comedienne. And don't discount Shearer -- her portrayal of good-girl Mary is never overpowered by these two far-flashier roles. The only part of The Women that misses is the fashion-show sequence. It was shot in color -- an innovative idea in its day -- but now both the concept and clothes are dreary and archaic. Do keep an eye on the supporting players, though, especially Mary Boland as the Countess DeLage. The role was based on a cafe society dame of that era, the Countess DiFrasso, who had a wild affair with Gary Cooper; that romance is satirized here. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide