Not So Dumb

Last updated

Not So Dumb
Not So Dumb FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by King Vidor
Written by Wanda Tuchock
Edwin Justus Mayer
Lucille Newmark
Based onDulcy
1921 play
by George S. Kaufman
Marc Connelly
Produced by Marion Davies
King Vidor
StarringMarion Davies
Elliott Nugent
Raymond Hackett
Cinematography Oliver T. Marsh
Edited by Blanche Sewell
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • January 17, 1930 (1930-01-17)
Running time
76 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Not So Dumb is a 1930 pre-Code comedy motion picture starring Marion Davies, directed by King Vidor, and produced for Cosmopolitan Productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Contents

It is based on the stage play Dulcy by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly that starred Lynn Fontanne. The film resulted in a financial loss for the studio of $39,000. [1]

This is a re-make of the 1923 film Dulcy. See also the 1940 film of the same name (Dulcy).

Plot

Dulcinea Parker goes to the train station to meet the Forbes: mother Eleanor, father Charles, and daughter Angela, whom she has invited to spend the weekend. We are also introduced to her new butler Perkins, who is an ex-convict on parole.

Dulcinea, ever the "dumb blonde", has a habit of doing the wrong thing. She misquotes common expressions and butchers the King's English. She and her brother Bill, whom she calls Willie, who's in love with Angela, host the Forbes and several other guests for the weekend. Dulcinea is scheming to get Mr. Forbes to invest in her fiance' Gordon's costume jewelry business.

She plays matchmaker to Angela by pairing her with the flamboyant "scenario writer" Vincent Leach, who enthusiastically tells his latest story for over two hours. Dulcinea's matchmaking efforts are fruitful, and Angela plans to elope with Vincent. Willie, still carrying a torch for Angela, offers to drive the clandestine couple to their wedding. Later, only Angela & Willie return, married.

Dulcinea also entertains a golf enthusiast, Schuyler Van Dyke, who offers to fund Gordon's enterprise (and shamelessly flirts with Mrs. Forbes). Emboldened, Gordon tells off Mr. Forbes. All is well until a man named Patterson arrives; the brother of "Van Dyke", who apparently suffers from delusions of grandeur. Realizing that Gordon's funding is a fantasy, panic ensues. But, since Mr. Forbes recognizes Mr. Patterson as the real Schuyler Van Dyke's attorney, he doesn't believe Van Dyke's a fake. So, fortunately for all, Mr. Forbes outbids Van Dyke's investment, thus making Dulcinea an accidental hero and a not-so-dumb blonde.

Cast

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marion Davies</span> American actress (1897–1961)

Marion Davies was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, Runaway Romany (1917). She soon became a featured performer in the Ziegfeld Follies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reginald Gardiner</span> British actor

William Reginald Gardiner was an English actor on the stage, in films and on television.

<i>Green Acres</i> American television sitcom (1965–71)

Green Acres is an American television sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm. Produced by Filmways as a sister show to Petticoat Junction, the series was first broadcast on CBS, from September 15, 1965, to April 27, 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Marie</span> American actress, singer, and comedian (1923–2017)

Rose Marie was an American actress, singer, comedian, and vaudeville performer with a career ultimately spanning nine decades, which included film, radio, records, theater, night clubs and television. As a child performer during the years just after the silent film era, she had a successful singing career under the stage name Baby Rose Marie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blonde stereotype</span> Stereotypes of blond-haired people

Blonde stereotypes are stereotypes of blonde-haired people. Sub-types of this stereotype include the "blonde bombshell" and the "dumb blonde". Blondes have been stereotyped as less intelligent than brunettes. There are many blonde jokes made on these premises. However, research has shown that blonde women are not less intelligent than women with other hair colors.

Sandra Dickinson is an American-British actress. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She has often played characters within the trope of a dumb blonde with a high-pitched voice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eleanor Audley</span> American actress (1905–1991)

Eleanor Audley was an American actress with a distinctive voice and a diverse body of work. She played Oliver Douglas's mother, Eunice Douglas, on the CBS sitcom Green Acres (1965–1969), and provided Disney animated features with the voices of the two iconic villains: Lady Tremaine in Cinderella (1950), and Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty (1959). She had roles in live-action films, but was most active in radio programs such as My Favorite Husband as Liz Cooper's mother-in-law, Mrs. Cooper, and Father Knows Best as the Anderson family's neighbor, Mrs. Smith. Audley's television appearances include those in I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mister Ed, Hazel, The Beverly Hillbillies, Pistols 'n' Petticoats, and My Three Sons.

<i>Hide-Out</i> 1934 film by W. S. Van Dyke

Hide-Out is a 1934 American pre-Code comedy, crime, drama, romance film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring Robert Montgomery and Maureen O'Sullivan. It also features a young Mickey Rooney. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing - Original Story. It was re-made in 1941 as I'll Wait for You.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Ogden Stewart</span> American author and screenwriter

Donald Ogden Stewart was an American writer and screenwriter best known for his sophisticated golden age comedies and melodramas such as The Philadelphia Story, Tarnished Lady and Love Affair. Stewart worked with a number of the directors of his time, including George Cukor, Michael Curtiz and Ernst Lubitsch. Stewart was a member of the Algonquin Round Table and, with Ernest Hemingway's friend Bill Smith, the model for Bill Gorton in The Sun Also Rises. His 1922 parody on etiquette, Perfect Behavior, published by George H. Doran and Co., was a favourite book of P. G. Wodehouse.

<i>No Man of Her Own</i> (1932 film) 1932 film

No Man of Her Own is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama film starring Clark Gable and Carole Lombard as a married couple in their only film together, several years before their own legendary marriage in real life. The film was directed by Wesley Ruggles, and originated as an adaptation of No Bed of Her Own, a 1931 novel by Val Lewton, but ended up based more on a story by Benjamin Glazer and Edmund Goulding, although it retained the title from Lewton's novel. It is not related to the 1950 film of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Shawlee</span> American actress (1926–1987)

Joan Shawlee, nee Joan Fulton, was an American film and television actress. She is known for her recurring role as "Pickles" in The Dick Van Dyke Show, a career-defining turn in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) playing Sweet Sue, the abrasive martinet in charge of Marilyn Monroe's all-girl jazz band, and as the flamboyant Madame Pompey in the 1957 Maverick episode "Stampede" with James Garner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Gillingwater</span> American actor (1870–1939)

Claude Benton Gillingwater was an American stage and screen actor. He first appeared on the stage then in more than 90 films between 1918 and 1939, including the Academy Award-nominated A Tale of Two Cities (1935) and Conquest (1937). He appeared in several films starring Shirley Temple, beginning with Poor Little Rich Girl (1936).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Cornwall</span> American actress (1897–1980)

Anne Cornwall was an American actress best known for her roles in College (1927) and The Roughneck (1924).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marion Meade</span> American novelist (1934–2022)

Marion Meade was an American biographer and novelist. She was best known for her portraits of writers and filmmakers.

<i>Dulcy</i> (1923 film) 1923 film by Sidney Franklin, Jack Wagner

Dulcy is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by Sidney A. Franklin and starring Constance Talmadge. The film was adapted from the Broadway production of the same name written by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. The play opened in New York in August 1921 and ran for 241 performances.

<i>Dr. Kildares Victory</i> 1942 US film directed by W. S. Van Dyke

Dr. Kildare's Victory is a 1942 film directed by W. S. Van Dyke. It stars Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore. It is the ninth and last of the MGM Dr. Kildare movie series.

<i>Dulcy</i> (1940 film) 1940 film by S. Sylvan Simon

Dulcy is a 1940 American comedy film, based upon the 1921 play written by directed by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. It was directed by S. Sylvan Simon for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and stars Ann Sothern, Ian Hunter, and Roland Young.

Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary is a three-volume biographical dictionary published in 1971. Its origins lay in 1957 when Radcliffe College librarians, archivists, and professors began researching the need for a version of the Dictionary of American Biography dedicated solely to women.

<i>Millions in the Air</i> 1935 film by Ray McCarey

Millions in the Air is a 1935 American comedy film directed by Ray McCarey and written by Sig Herzig and Jane Storm. The film stars John Howard, Wendy Barrie, Willie Howard, George Barbier, Benny Baker, Eleanore Whitney and Robert Cummings. The film was released on December 12, 1935, by Paramount Pictures.

<i>Buttons: A Christmas Tale</i> 2018 film by Tim Janis

Buttons: A Christmas Tale is a 2018 American fantasy drama film directed by Tim Janis, and starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jane Seymour, Roma Downey, Abigail Spencer, Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury, with narration by Robert Redford and Kate Winslet.

References

  1. Nasaw, David. The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. pg. 411.