Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#145268
of 909177 performers
Top 25%
Margaret Dumont works on quiet performance rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Margaret Dumont appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Margaret. A Night at the Opera is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, comedy, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, music, war. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Charles Reisner, Edward Buzzell, Sam Wood and others, Margaret Dumont helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
A Night at the Opera (1935) as Mrs. Claypool · Duck Soup (1933) as Gloria Teasdale · A Day at the Races (1937) as Emily Upjohn
Career snapshot
Ranked #145268 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1930–1941
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
A Night at the Opera
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
A Night at the Opera
Most frequent director
Sam Wood
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Sam Wood
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 29m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.4
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1930s
6.8 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. At the Circus, A Day at the Races, A Night at the Opera — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.8
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. At the Circus, A Day at the Races, A Night at the Opera.
Most productive era
1930s
5 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Comedy | 6.85 films | 6.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1930Animal Crackers
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mrs. Rittenhouse.
Career peak
1933Duck Soup
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
1941The Big Store
The current state of the argument, as Martha Phelps.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
6 of 6 films
as Gloria Teasdale
Directed by Leo McCarey
as Mrs. Rittenhouse
Directed by Victor Heerman
as Martha Phelps
Directed by Charles Reisner
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Gloria Teasdale
Duck Soup (1933)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gloria Teasdale gives Margaret Dumont a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Emily Upjohn
A Day at the Races (1937)
Performance score7.0
A Day at the Races asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Emily Upjohn is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mrs. Claypool
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Performance score7.0
A Night at the Opera asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Claypool is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mrs. Rittenhouse
Animal Crackers (1930)
Performance score6.9
Animal Crackers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Rittenhouse is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Gloria Teasdale
Start here. Duck Soup is the clearest statement of what Margaret Dumont does — accessible, 68 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Margaret at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Animal Crackers (1930)
Keeps the comedy register of Duck Soup but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Keeps the comedy register of Animal Crackers but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Day at the Races (1937)
Same director as A Night at the Opera, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Big Store (1941)
Keeps the comedy register of A Day at the Races but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sam Wood
Director
2 films together
Notably A Night at the Opera
Victor Heerman
Director
1 film together
Notably Animal Crackers
Leo McCarey
Director
1 film together
Notably Duck Soup
Edward Buzzell
Director
1 film together
Notably At the Circus
Charles Reisner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Big Store
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Sam Wood
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
A Night at the OperaLeo McCarey
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Duck SoupVictor Heerman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Animal CrackersEdward Buzzell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
At the CircusCharles Reisner
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Big StoreSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
A Night at the Opera
as Mrs. Claypool
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Animal Crackers
as Mrs. Rittenhouse
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
A Night at the Opera
as Mrs. Claypool
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
A Night at the Opera
as Mrs. Claypool
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Duck Soup
as Gloria Teasdale
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Margaret Dumont has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in comedy, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
A Night at the Opera
as Mrs. Claypool
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
A Night at the Opera
as Mrs. Claypool
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Animal Crackers
as Mrs. Rittenhouse
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
A Night at the Opera
as Mrs. Claypool
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
A Night at the Opera
as Mrs. Claypool
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
A Day at the Races
as Emily Upjohn
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Duck Soup
as Gloria Teasdale
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Big Store
as Martha Phelps
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy
Tim Allen
Built a career in the same territory: comedy
Joan Cusack
Built a career in the same territory: comedy
Greta Lee
Built a career in the same territory: comedy
Conan O'Brien
Built a career in the same territory: comedy
Have your say
Community
Which Margaret Dumont performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
