Now Available, the Marx Brothers’ Manic Madness at Its High-Water Mark

In 2007, Military History magazine came up with a list of the 50 best movies about war. Toward the top were stalwarts of the genre, like “The Grand Illusion” (1937), “Alexander Nevsky” (1938), “Paths of Glory” (1957), and “Das Boot” (1981). Would the recent Oscar-winning version of “All Quiet on the Western Front” bump Lewis Milestone’s 1931 original from first place? Time to rally the troops and find out.Movie fans can pick nits about the pecking order, but not a few observers raised a grease-painted eyebrow at the inclusion of the Marx Brothers vehicle “Duck Soup” (1933). Perched at no. 27, this Marxist encomium to diplomacy, nationalism, and the pleasures of pestering the peanut vendor beat out notable entries like “Battleship Potemkin” (1925), “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946), “The Great Escape” (1963), and “Schindler’s List (1993). Almost two decades and a world of chaos later, it’s worth wondering where the fortunes of Fredonia and its leader Hugo T. Firefly might rank.Universal Studios has seen fit to release new Blu-ray editions of the five movies the Brothers Marx made at Paramount Pictures; these include “The Cocoanuts” (1929), “Animal Crackers” (1930), “Monkey Business” (1931), “Horse Feathers” (1932), and “Duck Soup.” Fans of Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and, yes, Zeppo have been duly alerted. Amongst Marx aficionados, these films count as the high-water mark of their cinematic career. The first two movies are adaptations of their hit Broadway plays and serve an important documentary purpose. The other three contain some advantageous recycling of stage bits and radio patter, but were otherwise made from whole cloth in Hollywood. The word on just how much of a dud “Duck Soup” was at the box office has always been fuzzy, but when MGM, the cream of the movie studios crop, came calling, the Brothers, save Zeppo, answered the door.Zeppo, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx in ‘The Cocoanuts.’ Via Wikimedia CommonsThis is not the place to detail the success of “A Night at the Opera” (1935) or the subsequent downfall of the Marxes upon the death of Irving “The Boy Wonder” Thalberg, the producer who brought them to MGM. Although the followup to “Opera,” “A Day at the Races” (1937), contained some sterling set pieces, the film was lumpish and overlong. Things didn’t get any better. “After Thalberg’s death,” Groucho wrote, “my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but … the fun had gone out of picture making.” Then again, it would be hard to say Groucho and kin had fun on “The Cocoanuts.” Filmed during the day at Astoria Studios while the Brothers were knocking ’em dead at night on the Great White Way, the picture seems to run in slow motion, as if it were registering the exhaustion of its harried stars. ALThough co-director Robert Florey was an adept hand — he would go on to helm the underrated “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1932) and the Anna May Wong vehicle “Daughter of Shanghai” (1937) — “The Cocoanuts” is fairly stolid as a moving picture. Some blame can be apportioned on unwieldy filmmarking technologies of the time. But, as Groucho stated of the French Florey and his co-director Joseph Santley, “One of them didn’t understand English and the other didn’t understand Harpo.”Like “The Cocoanuts,” “Animal Crackers” suffers from staginess in directing, but is redeemed by the Brothers firing on all cylinders. If their first film found these stage brats ill at ease with the new medium, the second time around they’re almost preternaturally in command. Groucho mocks Eugene O’Neill, Chico is raffish and charming, Harpo flouts the standards of civilized behavior, and Zeppo flouts Groucho when it comes to the dictation of legal correspondence. What do you know? Zeppo was a Marx Brother, after all.“Monkey Business” hit big at the box office and the release of “Horsefeathers” got the Marxes featured on the cover of Time. At a swift 68 minutes, the latter is in close contention with “Duck Soup” as the Brothers’ best film. Although it is without Groucho’s great dowdy foil, Margaret Dumont, “Horsefeathers” features the ill-fated Thelma Todd as the “campus widow” who more than holds her own among the mayhem wreaked by her co-stars. Music plays a significant part in “Horsefeathers,” featuring, as it does, “Everybody Says I Love You” and the eternal anthem for anarchists the world over, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It.” Both songs were written by Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, who also penned the songs for “Animal Crackers,” including “Hooray for Captain Spaulding.” There are worse ways to achieve immortality than rhyming “African explorer” with “Did someone call me schnorrer?” That Groucho sings the couplet with sly relish helps.Should you be a spy in need of a code and two pairs of plans or a reminder that giants once duck-walked upon the earth, these Universal reissues prove that a candle can, in fact, be burned at both ends.

Now Available, the Marx Brothers’ Manic Madness at Its High-Water Mark

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