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/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..."