DVD/150: DUCK SOUP (Leo McCarey, 1933)

I always approach a favourite comedy with trepidation - will it still be funny?  I am happy to report that DUCK SOUP is still one of the great comedies.

The slapstick and gags are non-stop but McCarey hones them for maximum impact, happily no musical solos or love interest slow it down, while underneath lurks subtle satire on the politics of war.

Wealthy widow Mrs Teadale has funded Freedonia's failing government so demands a new leader, namely Rufus T Firefly who accepts so he can marry her for her money!

The Ambassador of neighbouring Sylvania is plotting to invade Freedonia although hindered by his anarchic spies Chicolini and Pinky.

War is declared - Firefly has already paid a month's rent on the battlefield - which culminates with them all in a cottage where he exhorts them with "Remember, you're fighting for this woman's honor, which is probably more than she ever did."

Shelf or charity shop? It's what shelves were made for.  OK confession time: I went to see DUCK SOUP at the late and great Scala Cinema in Tottenham Street as part of a Marx Brothers all-nighter - remember all-nighters? - and during the magnificent 'mirror scene'... well I couldn't help it... Constant Reader, I wet myself laughing.  I am sure The Brothers would take that as the ultimate good review.  There is a rumour that DUCK SOUP was such a box-office flop that it led to the Brothers leaving Paramount; the truth is that the film was the 6th most popular film of 1933 but it did not do as well as their previous film. The Brothers were already at loggerheads with Paramount before the film started and simply did not seek to extend their five-picture deal.  The film also marked another ending as Zeppo quit the team, going on to become a successful actors agent.  But over and above, DUCK SOUP remains not only my favourite Marx Brothers film but one of my favourite films of all time.  With wonderful support from Margaret Dumont as Mrs Teasdale, Louis Calhern as the Sylvanian Ambassador and Edgar Kennedy as Harpo's lemonade-seller nemesis, the Brothers are allowed to concentrate on being the greatest screen comedy team.  My idea of Heaven is to watch the whole sequence leading up to the 'mirror scene': with Harpo and Chico impersonating Groucho - all dressed in long nightshirts and bedcaps, the comedy builds and builds until Groucho and Harpo find themselves on opposite sides of a large doorway, both pretending - with no dialogue - that the other is a reflection.  Surreal and hilarious, it is capped when Chico wanders in too.  They would go on to sign with MGM but it was a poisoned chalice as Irving Thalberg - although a fan of their work - insisted that they bring back the musical solos and a love interest couple; DUCK SOUP was the height of their screen anarchy.

DVD: HORSE FEATHERS (Norman Z Mcleod, 1932)

This time The Marx Brothers gatecrash college life and it's football team.

Groucho is Huxley College's new president who is asked by son Zeppo (in real life eleven years younger!) to buy two star players for the college football team but after a crook buys the players for the opposition, Groucho mistakenly signs up iceman Chico and dog-catcher Harpo!

It culminates in a chaotic football match via the apartment of the mobster's girlfriend (the wonderful Thelma Todd).

The plot is negligable as it is, in essence, a series of set-pieces that had been road-tested onstage as far back as 1910 in FUN IN HI SKULE.

But what set-pieces... Groucho trying to get into a speakeasy with the password 'swordfish', the Brothers descending on Todd's apartment in pure door-slamming farce style (sadly, this scene is ruined by jarring jump-cuts) and Groucho teaching an anatomy class.

Shelf or charity shop?  A keeper for the fact it is pure Marx,  With the plot frequently taking a backseat, it's easy to sit back and enjoy the anarchic madness of the brothers let loose.  I told you all about the tragic Thelma Todd in the blog for MONKEY BUSINESS and here she appeared with the lads for the last time.  As well as the usual running gag of the vast array of items that Harpo pulls out of his coat pockets, this time there is also the delight of Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby's EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU running through the film sung at different times by Groucho, Zeppo and Chico - and of course Harpo has a harp rendition.  It was of course the song that gave Woody Allen the title for his 1996 musical, and there is an outlandish dance routine for Groucho and the faculty professors at the start of the film with one of his most-remembered songs "I'm Against It"

As Chico starts playing his obligatory piano number, Groucho turns to the audience and says "I've got to stay here, but there's no reason why you folks shouldn't go out into the lobby until this thing blows over."

Groucho: Baravelli, you've got the brain of a four-year old boy, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it.

 

DVD/150: MONKEY BUSINESS (Norman Z McLeod, 1931)

The Marx Brothers' third film was box office gold for Paramount and, while certain set pieces were based on stage sketches, MONKEY BUSINESS was their first written directly for the screen and filmed in Hollywood.

Four stowaways on an Atlantic liner are discovered and run amok evading capture - and that's the first 75% of the film!  There is a dull sub-plot about returning racketeer Helton being threatened by his rival Briggs, so Helton hires Chico and Harpo as bodyguards while Briggs hires Groucho and Zeppo: not that the brothers are bothered - Groucho is more interested in Briggs' bored wife Lucille...

Once back, Helton's daughter is kidnapped by Briggs so it's the Marx Brothers to the rescue!

Chico plays a piano and mangles the English language, Harpo plays a harp and chases women, Groucho has inexhaustable one-liners and is pure charisma while Zeppo gets to be the romantic juve.

Shelf or charity shop?  Although not as uprorious as it might once have been, there is still enough dizzying wordplay and great sight-gags to make it an entertaining watch.  By now the brothers' rapport was seamless and to watch them in full flight is still wonderful.  A particular highlight is where Harpo gatecrashes a Punch & Judy show to escape an officer and becomes a character in the show: a surrealist touch being that there appears to be no puppeteer.  There is also the wonderful set piece where the stowaways each attempt to disembark pretending to be Maurice Chevalier.  No Margaret Dumont this time but Groucho has an excellent partnership with Thelma Todd, perfect as the hard-as-nails Lucille who is a solid foil for Groucho to literally dance around.  She registers well as another sexy wife in the next Marx film HORSE FEATHERS but three years later, in one of Hollywood's most puzzling cases, was found dead in her car in a garage.  Allegedly locked out of their shared apartment by her lover and business partner, it is surmised that she got into the car and turned the motor on to keep warm.  However the whispers of either foul play by her partner or the mob have haunted the case; a sad end for this talented actress.

Groucho: I wish to announce that a buffet supper will be served in the next room in five minutes. In order to get you in that room quickly, Mrs. Schmalhausen will sing a soprano solo in this room.

Groucho: That's what I always say: love flies out the door when money comes innuendo. 

 

DVD/150: ANIMAL CRACKERS (Victor Heerman, 1930)

During the 1920s The Marx Brothers became popular stage comedians on Broadway with their mix of madcap humour and musical numbers.  With the coming of sound films, they signed to Paramount Pictures.

Their debut THE COCONUTS (1929) was based on their George S. Kaufman Broadway hit and was filmed during the day in Queens so they could appear in the evening in their new Kaufman show ANIMAL CRACKERS.  Although clunky THE COCONUTS was a huge hit so ANIMAL CRACKERS followed.

Co-starring their onstage foil Margaret Dumont, ANIMAL CRACKERS is at times stagey - the supporting cast play their lines a quarter-turn towards the camera - but it captures the brothers at their most unfettered.

They arrive onscreen fully-formed: Groucho is the rapid-fire focus of attention while Chico and Harpo are chancers who usually side with him when not working an angle for themselves.

An utter Marx Brothers classic.

Shelf or charity shop?  A definite keeper. The film also features their younger brother Zeppo in a nothing role as Groucho's secretary but he does share a great, seemingly improvised, scene where Groucho dictates a letter to his solicitors.  Appearing in the ingenue role was 20 year-old Broadway singer Lillian Roth before her career was nearly ruined by alcohol; her confessional autobiography was filmed with Susan Hayward which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination.  Stopping occasionally for a Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby song - including Groucho's later personal theme song "Hurray For Captain Spalding" - Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind's script zips along whenever the lads are allowed to sidestep the plot for more of their inspired lunacy.  Even the musical interludes for Chico and Harpo are not so grating as they later became.  But it's Groucho's film all the way - from breaking away from a scene to lampoon Eugene O'Neill's STRANGE INTERLUDE - and how many people in Buttkick Idaho would have got THAT? - to his whipcracking quips and asides which are as dazzling as ever..

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."

"Signor Ravelli's first selection will be "Somewhere My Love Lies Sleeping" with a male chorus."

"We took some pictures of the native girls; but, they weren't developed.

But, we're going back again in a coupla weeks..."

 

DVD/150: GO WEST (Edward Buzzell, 1940)

The Marx Brothers joined MGM in 1935 under the patronage of influential producer Irving Thalberg and had a hit immediately with A NIGHT AT THE OPERA.  But the following year Thalberg died aged 37 and the brothers found themselves without a champion.  After a loan-out to RKO, they returned to MGM to films with smaller budgets and lower production values, like GO WEST.

Groucho plays confidence man S. Quentin Quail who goes west to fleece new chumps but is himself swindled by wily brothers Joseph and Rusty (Chico and Harpo).

Despite this, they join together to foil villainous railway executives from stealing land away from an old prospector, his daughter and her boyfriend.

Cue brassy saloon girls, threatening Indians, moustache-twirling villains, and other b-western tropes found on the backlot.

A climactic train chase - done while chopping up the train for fuel - ends the film on a high.

Shelf or charity shop?  There is still enough fun to be had from Groucho - and a delightful song RIDIN' THE RANGE by Roger Edens and Gus Kahn - to keep this in my dvd limbo of a plastic storage box.  It should be noted that Buster Keaton was an uncredited contributor to the script which might explain why the train chase occasionally echoes his own classic THE GENERAL.

DVD/150: A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA (Archie Mayo, 1946)

The Marx Brothers quit films in 1941 but by 1946, Chico was in debt due to his gambling addiction so they returned to the screen with A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA.  Having lost their MGM contract, CASABLANCA was released through United Artists.

Their last few films had reduced budgets and their unique anarchic spark had been watered down by playing almost second fiddle to insipid romantic couples and the obligatory instrumental solos for Harpo and Chico.

A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA follows this pattern with them shoe-horned into a lacklustre espionage plot where ex-Nazis are killing recurring hotel managers who get in the way of them finding hidden Nazi loot within the Casablanca hotel. 

Enter Groucho as Ronald Kornblow, the new hotel manager, who joins forces with the ex-Nazi's bullied valet Rusty (Harpo) and camel taxi-owner Corbaccio (Chico) to get into various scrapes and unwittingly foil the baddies.

Shelf or charity shop?  I am still undecided... Groucho is always worth watching but the film has them revisiting earlier situations but with a tired air which probably reflects that Groucho, Harpo and Chico were respectively 56, 58 and 59 at the time of filming.  I suspect it will stay in my dvd limbo of a plastic storage box.