Director: Leo McCarey
Writers: Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Arthur Sheekman, Nat Perrin
Photography: Henry Sharp
Music: John Leipold
Editor: LeRoy Stone
Cast: Marx Brothers (Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx), Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern, Edgar Kennedy, Raquel Torres
Classic comedies from the 1930s tend to befuddle me some. The lifelong familiarity of the Little Rascals, Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and all the others, with the primitive '30s technology, provide a certain comfort, recalling late nights and early Saturday morning appointment TV reruns. But I don't actually laugh very much at these comedies, at least not on my own. The way I like to see them best is in crowded theaters where all the laughter is infectious. But if you can even find a well-attended screening of Duck Soup somewhere at the moment, I probably wouldn't go. There's the rub.
Duck Soup generally seems to be regarded as the best Marx Brothers movie, highest-ranked on the big list at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? and on lots of google search results. And yes, seeing it again recently (alone at my computer, periodically checking email), I can see the case for that even if Chico doesn't get a piano scene, which I missed, and Harpo's harp-playing (which I missed less) is limited to a few seconds on a grand piano's strings. The plot hangs together better than most. Margaret Dumont, who should be considered a Marx Brother, is her usual stiff-necked society dame straight man. And Groucho's compulsive logorrhea is in peak form: Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you: he really is an idiot. I implore you, send him back to ...
Classic comedies from the 1930s tend to befuddle me some. The lifelong familiarity of the Little Rascals, Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and all the others, with the primitive '30s technology, provide a certain comfort, recalling late nights and early Saturday morning appointment TV reruns. But I don't actually laugh very much at these comedies, at least not on my own. The way I like to see them best is in crowded theaters where all the laughter is infectious. But if you can even find a well-attended screening of Duck Soup somewhere at the moment, I probably wouldn't go. There's the rub.
Duck Soup generally seems to be regarded as the best Marx Brothers movie, highest-ranked on the big list at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? and on lots of google search results. And yes, seeing it again recently (alone at my computer, periodically checking email), I can see the case for that even if Chico doesn't get a piano scene, which I missed, and Harpo's harp-playing (which I missed less) is limited to a few seconds on a grand piano's strings. The plot hangs together better than most. Margaret Dumont, who should be considered a Marx Brother, is her usual stiff-necked society dame straight man. And Groucho's compulsive logorrhea is in peak form: Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you: he really is an idiot. I implore you, send him back to ...
