Usually Dumont was in scenes with Groucho. Very rare for her to be in a scene with just Chico and Harpo. It's kind of nice. Early on, Harpo takes her hand and means to hit her with a blackjack (or whatever that is) and hits himself instead and she says, "It's your own fault." It's like she is scolding a child. Very different from her scenes with Groucho, who mostly just insults her. She almost seems to be having a good time here.
Until Harpo starts punching her in the stomach, lol. That's about the roughest treatment she ever got from them, apart from being fired out of a cannon in At the Circus.
@@halwasserman7905 Right after this scene, the women come back into the room, Harpo jumps on them, Dumont pulls him off and he falls down, then he goes into a sort of prizefighter thing and starts punching her in the stomach repeatedly. He's not really punching her, more lifting her up into the air. She doesn't get hurt, but it's a pretty startling moment, maybe the Marx bros. most visually violent assault on the upper class. Poor Margaret doesn't really do anything to deserve it, lol. I agree, At The Circus is crap. The quality of their writers was terrible after Night At The Opera. Even Day At The Races is pretty patchy, and things were getting all sappy and cliched at that point. It was a big mistake for the studios to try to turn them into sentimental heroes of the story. They only worked as anarchic, chaotic outsiders.
@@premanadi Now that you mention it, I do recall the stomach-punching moment. Completely agree about Day at the Races. The Marx Brothers should have definitely hung up their hats after Night at the Opera.
@@halwasserman7905 Well, I don't think the problem was so much with them. It was that their writers were shitty after that. I don't know why they couldn't have kept using the same great people they had in the previous few years. I think the studios just screwed them over. Too bad they didn't write their own material, like Fields.
You insult the Marx Brothers by putting them in the same category as the Stooges. Stooges were not funny and always doing the same act. Now Laurel and Hardy are in the same category as the Marxes.
Nochickenwingsforyou- everybody has their opinion. That's cool. But the Three Stooges were excellent comedians. Personally, I wasn't too keen about Laurel and Hardy. That's what makes the world go around, we all have different opinions. And I respect that you have yours. Laurel and Hardy weren't insulted today. I'm sure they are turning over in their graves about it. Lol.
I didn't used to think so, but when I caught up with her age in the Marx Brothers movies and started passing it, she began to look pretty darn good to me! 😁
I couldn't imagine the camera sitting that still even for a second in any movie these days. Folks have lost their attention spans when it comes to films. Marx Brothers were the best.
I love when Harpo is dealing the cards the way he SCRUMBLED them up and cut the deck and started dealing showing all the good cards to Chico and tossing the others away. I did that playing poker with my friends see if would catch me they caught on in a few seconds and got a kick out of it
Hi , it’s nice meeting you here.. I’m joe by name, it would be nice getting to know you better, if that’s ok with you? My mom once said good friends are never too much to have. if you don’t mind, can we be friends?? Lovely smile you got there on your profile picture.
Chico Marx had three kinds of friends: producers who gambled, actors who gambled, and women who---well, I guess you could call it gambling if you were the woman. But he did help his brother Groucho financially after he lost most of his money in the Crash.
Today is March 22, 2021 and Chico was born in March 22, 1887 and Died in August 1961. This fellow comedian is officially 134 after his death almost 60 years ago.
@@loge10 That's what Groucho always liked to claim, but I think that's highly doubtful. She was not a stupid woman. I think he was bending the truth for effect.
Joe Adamson said it best in his breezy, brilliant bio "Groucho, Harpo, Chico & Sometimes Zeppo". Traveling with Dumont by train while touring with "Coconuts" and "Animal Crackers", Harpo would steal her wig (she was bald from a childhood disease) and she'd have to exit the train with a Pullman towel wrapped around her head. All the boys would grab a passing conductor, pull down his pants and throw him into her compartment on top of her and Groucho would casually insult her virtue and honor much in public as he did on stage. And Ms. Dumont would merely roll her eyes and sigh as if she was putting up with a gaggle of lovable and incorrigible boys. What a great woman. She never lost her cool or regal dignity because she knew full well she was in on the joke.
The primary source for that is Groucho's claim that she asked him what are they laughing at. It's possible that she may not have understood a double entendre or two, but it's also obviously clear from what she has said and from their live performance that she generally appreciated the humor.
In Dick Cavett's interview with Groucho, he asserts that Margaret Dumont never figured out that she was a foil, and that she really didn't have a clue what was happening.
I have learned not to believe everything Groucho says/remembers. Too many years had gone by and many people gone when he was back in the limelight. He could say/remember anything he wanted without being contradicted.
I don't think she's so much trying to keep from laughing here. It still fits the character. She's bemused by the silly little man supposed to be shuffling the deck and he's doing it separately. She's not supposed to be the focus in the scene. As far as her getting the humor or not getting it, I think she understood it, there's not a lot to not be understood, it's just quick and done, but I could believe it wasn't her level of humor, but obviously she definitely embellishes their silliness.
I think the official word for it would be a truncheon or a blackjack. A weapon for beating people, usually carried by cops but a criminal could have one.
It's a blackjack. They make reference to it as well in the movie scene "the flash" when Harpo is emptying out his pockets looking for a flashlight. It was a weapon used back in their day.
