I first saw the Marx Brothers courtesy of a Buffalo TV station—one of them used to broadcast old comedies on Sunday mornings. I think I saw their first swansong, The Big Store (1941), first, and despite it not being their finest work, I was hooked by Groucho, Harpo, and Chico.
If you’ve never seen the Marx Brothers before, I’d recommend watching their movies in chronological order (The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930) are adaptations of their Broadway shows). If you want to jump in head first, start with the next 3 Paramount movies, Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), and Duck Soup (1933). The start of the downfall is their first MGM movie, A Night at the Opera (1935). With Zeppo in tow, the boys attacked high society with a zeal that must have been like what the Sex Pistols did to music in 1977.
I like the Four Marx Brothers a bit better than the trio—Zeppo adds something that is missed in their later movies. As a wooden parody of the male love interest, his scenes in Monkey Business are pretty good (“the trees are lovely” while escorting a lovely lady around the deck of an ocean liner is my favourite Zeppo line and scene). He doesn’t do much in the other movies other than help move the exposition along (one scene in The Cocoanuts features him doing nothing other than saying “yes” to Groucho).
I initially liked Harpo the most—he’s an amazing clown, and with his silent act he gets in some great physical business. Alone or with Chico or Groucho, he gets a lot done, with the most visibly anarchic attitude. Harpo was a force of nature.
I think Chico’s best scenes are those where he plays with Harpo as they try to pull some scam on someone, usually Margaret Dumont (they do some great physical comedy together, such as the effort to escape from the gamblers in Horse Feathers or stealing a painting in Cocoanuts). I also like Chico’s scenes with Groucho as they mangle the language and the logic of language. The Chico-Groucho scenes are the ones most remembered (the contract scene in Opera, the map scene in Monkey Business, and the Why a Duck scene in Cocoanuts). Chico is a great con artist, ignorant and sometimes stupid, but shrewd enough to fleece you without you knowing it.
Groucho is probably the best-known brother today, and his machine-gun delivery and non-sequiter style still influences comedy today. Groucho would have been a great standup comedian if he were born into this era.
The greatest Marxist scenes involve all four (or three) brothers: the stateroom scene in Opera, the passport scene in Monkey Business, the speakeasy sequence or the lecture in Horse Feathers, for instance.
At Paramount, the Brothers were the romantic male leads—the leading lady was either Margaret Dumont or Thelma Todd. Both of these actresses were great comediennes, and the Paramounts would not have been the same without them. Todd, a gifted physical and verbal comedian, holds her own against Groucho in two of the Paramounts, playing a sexy femme fatale. Dumont, matronly and stuffy, represents the upper class and spends her time (and in some of the MGM’s) as the target of Groucho’s half-hearted efforts to woo her money into marriage. In both cases, you don’t expect the romance to last long after the movie ends as the boys move onto their next scam.
At MGM, the Brothers became the helpers for the romantic leads, and the movies aren’t the same. Although they were never as sentimental as Chaplin was, the later movies don’t have the same bite to them as the early ones. By giving up the role of the male lead, the boys became secondary to the plot. MGM wanted to sell tickets to women by featuring more romance, so you can blame your great-grandmother for it all.
Still, a bad Marx Bros. movie is better than no Marx Bros. movie….
If you’ve never seen the Marx Brothers before, I’d recommend watching their movies in chronological order (The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930) are adaptations of their Broadway shows). If you want to jump in head first, start with the next 3 Paramount movies, Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), and Duck Soup (1933). The start of the downfall is their first MGM movie, A Night at the Opera (1935). With Zeppo in tow, the boys attacked high society with a zeal that must have been like what the Sex Pistols did to music in 1977.
I like the Four Marx Brothers a bit better than the trio—Zeppo adds something that is missed in their later movies. As a wooden parody of the male love interest, his scenes in Monkey Business are pretty good (“the trees are lovely” while escorting a lovely lady around the deck of an ocean liner is my favourite Zeppo line and scene). He doesn’t do much in the other movies other than help move the exposition along (one scene in The Cocoanuts features him doing nothing other than saying “yes” to Groucho).
I initially liked Harpo the most—he’s an amazing clown, and with his silent act he gets in some great physical business. Alone or with Chico or Groucho, he gets a lot done, with the most visibly anarchic attitude. Harpo was a force of nature.
I think Chico’s best scenes are those where he plays with Harpo as they try to pull some scam on someone, usually Margaret Dumont (they do some great physical comedy together, such as the effort to escape from the gamblers in Horse Feathers or stealing a painting in Cocoanuts). I also like Chico’s scenes with Groucho as they mangle the language and the logic of language. The Chico-Groucho scenes are the ones most remembered (the contract scene in Opera, the map scene in Monkey Business, and the Why a Duck scene in Cocoanuts). Chico is a great con artist, ignorant and sometimes stupid, but shrewd enough to fleece you without you knowing it.
Groucho is probably the best-known brother today, and his machine-gun delivery and non-sequiter style still influences comedy today. Groucho would have been a great standup comedian if he were born into this era.
The greatest Marxist scenes involve all four (or three) brothers: the stateroom scene in Opera, the passport scene in Monkey Business, the speakeasy sequence or the lecture in Horse Feathers, for instance.
At Paramount, the Brothers were the romantic male leads—the leading lady was either Margaret Dumont or Thelma Todd. Both of these actresses were great comediennes, and the Paramounts would not have been the same without them. Todd, a gifted physical and verbal comedian, holds her own against Groucho in two of the Paramounts, playing a sexy femme fatale. Dumont, matronly and stuffy, represents the upper class and spends her time (and in some of the MGM’s) as the target of Groucho’s half-hearted efforts to woo her money into marriage. In both cases, you don’t expect the romance to last long after the movie ends as the boys move onto their next scam.
At MGM, the Brothers became the helpers for the romantic leads, and the movies aren’t the same. Although they were never as sentimental as Chaplin was, the later movies don’t have the same bite to them as the early ones. By giving up the role of the male lead, the boys became secondary to the plot. MGM wanted to sell tickets to women by featuring more romance, so you can blame your great-grandmother for it all.
Still, a bad Marx Bros. movie is better than no Marx Bros. movie….
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