Groucho marks

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I was watching an old movie last week [1932 I think] and I saw something that left me depressed. Since I was a boy I watched the Marks
brothers crazy antics with uncontrolled laughter, especially Harpo but I also laughed at the way Groucho talked nonsense to Margaret Dumont. Getting back to the movie of last week. I don't remember its name but along with the beautiful young women it stared two old time vaudeville comedians named Woolsey & Wheeler. Woolsey was the straight man while
Wheeler chomped on a cigar and talked nonsense to Margaret Domont or anyone else he was talking to. The only thing different from Groucho was, Wheeler didn't walk bent over or wear that painted on mustache. So that's where Groucho got that act.

[Bent Ramrod]

Not enough data there for that conclusion. Minnie Marx had her kids doing Vaudeville by 1905, and by WWI they were polished performers.

Whatever lines the screenwriters wrote for any of the brothers in the movie scripts were mostly wasted efforts. They ignored the scripts in favor of their Vaudeville routines from earlier performances and ad-libbed the rest as it occurred to them. Irving Thalberg (or maybe Moss Hart?) considered it an event when he heard a line of his dialog uttered in the movie by a Marx brother.

I didn’t know Margaret DuMont was in any other comic movies like that. She was supposed to have trained as a Shakespearean actress, and was such a fantastic straight woman that the legend arose that she didn’t understand the jokes the boys were uttering.

I recall that The Cocoanuts came out in 1929, so it may well be that Wheeler and Wolsey got their Schtick from the Marx Brothers, rather than the reverse.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Wheeler and Woolsey were in vaudeville long before 1929. Margaret was under contract to Warner brothers so she worked on what ever movies they told her to. She was a subject of discussion on TCM recently and one man who knew her well said she fully understood what was going and did get the jokes but chose not to react. She was a just a great straight man. What happened to her was a terrible crime and I don't think it was ever solved.

[MT Gianni]

I was reading a paper once on building when the author stated that defenestration isn't just an act of humor made famous by the Marx brothers. I still find that a hilarious statement.


defenestration= the act of throwing something out the window.[just to avoid dictionary use].

[HangFireW8]

What happened to her was a terrible crime and I don't think it was ever solved.
What crime was that? A quick read of Wikipedia gives her cause of death as heart attack at age 82.

[marlin39a]

The movie the OP is referring to is Girl Crazy, 1932. I have never seen it. Information can be found at. www.imdb.com

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Many years ago I watched a discussion about Margaret Dumont on TV and as I remember, it went like this. She bought a small hotel in Orange County, California, got into an argument with trade unions and person or persons unknown threw her down a flight of stairs breaking her leg. I never heard or read anything more about it and I, like you did not find in her biography.

[Char-Gar]

The Marx Brothers were a tribe of very funny American Jews. Karl Marx was neither American, Jewish nor funny.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Karl Marx said Russia would be last country to embrace his communism. As an aside, the Marx brothers sister married Jack Benny and changed her name to Mary Livingston. I also heard she was a not a very pleasant person.

[Char-Gar]

Karl Marx said Russia would be last country to embrace his communism.

You can add that to the long list of things he was wrong about.

[Texas by God]

"Viaduct? Vy not a chicken?"

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[Baltimoreed]

“I once shot an elephant in my pajamas... how he got in my pajamas I’ll never know.”

[dagger dog]

“I once shot an elephant in my pajamas... how he got in my pajamas I’ll never know.”

Tried to get him out but his tusks had him wedged in tight, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa.

"Say the secrete word and the duck will come down and give you $100.