Where To Start
I don't claim to be an expert on too many things, but I know the Marx Brothers. Leonard Pierce at the A.V. Club devoted a recent "Gateways To Geekery" to them. These are small pieces that suggest where to start your new obsession.
The interesting thing about the Brothers is, as great as they are, their existing body of work is pretty small. There are really only 13 true "Marx Bros. movies" and that's it. Of the 13, everyone agrees the final six or seven suffer in quality compared to the early stuff. So this isn't like Laurel and Hardy, who made tons of films, short and long, silent and sound, or Monty Python, who worked in TV, recordings, movies, books, etc. You just gotta pick one good movie as the gateway. Not that hard.
Still, I was surprised at Pierce's suggestion: Animal Crackers. It's a classic, and very funny, no doubt, but it's not only stagey (being based on stage work), but also somewhat primitive in that it's a talkie from 1930. I don't want to put it down too much, but it's possible these factors will be slightly off-putting to young people unfamiliar with the team who already have trouble with black and white. Furthermore, it has a sappy romantic subplot carried by other performers, something the Marxes would drop in the rest of their Paramount films.
Pierce is worried if you start at the top with Duck Soup, their last Paramount film, you'll have nowhere to go but down. Well, first, there aren't that many other Marx classics anyway, but they're good enough so that they'll hold up just fine after Duck Soup.
Unfortunately, Pierce's piece is rife with inaccuracies. Let me list some.
He says many of their films have their origin in musical theatre. Actually, only their first two do.
He says they remain relevant (true) as their oldest film creeps up on being a century old. Since The Cocoanuts won't be 100 until 2029, that's a fair amount of creeping left to do.
He makes certain claims for their importance that are a bit off--like how Animal Crackers made them national stars, not The Cocoanuts.
He claims Chico shouts "Abie the fishmonger" when it's "Abie the fish man."
He writes
the brothers’ next movie, Monkey Business, is a step backward in terms of stagey film work and dull subplots, but it also has some of their sharpest material, and is the first of their movies that Groucho doesn’t completely dominate. Horse Feathers is a lesser effort...
Whether Monkey Business is a step down from Animal Crackers is a judgment call, but it's ridiculous to call it stagier when in fact it's much more free and open--a real film, not just an adaptation of a stage play. And it's astonishing to hear Horse Feathers called a lesser effort--I'd say it's their only film that hits with a comic force equal to Duck Soup.
Regarding Duck Soup, he writes:
though studio bosses at the time blamed its lack of a romantic subplot for its mediocre box-office performance and mixed reviews, now, that absence makes it glide along as smooth and fast as a hunting shark.
No one had cared about Zeppo's romantic subplots in the previous two movies. Studio bosses were more likely to blame the lack of music specialties and the topic--satirizing world leaders.
Next he writes:
The interesting thing about the Brothers is, as great as they are, their existing body of work is pretty small. There are really only 13 true "Marx Bros. movies" and that's it. Of the 13, everyone agrees the final six or seven suffer in quality compared to the early stuff. So this isn't like Laurel and Hardy, who made tons of films, short and long, silent and sound, or Monty Python, who worked in TV, recordings, movies, books, etc. You just gotta pick one good movie as the gateway. Not that hard.
Still, I was surprised at Pierce's suggestion: Animal Crackers. It's a classic, and very funny, no doubt, but it's not only stagey (being based on stage work), but also somewhat primitive in that it's a talkie from 1930. I don't want to put it down too much, but it's possible these factors will be slightly off-putting to young people unfamiliar with the team who already have trouble with black and white. Furthermore, it has a sappy romantic subplot carried by other performers, something the Marxes would drop in the rest of their Paramount films.
Pierce is worried if you start at the top with Duck Soup, their last Paramount film, you'll have nowhere to go but down. Well, first, there aren't that many other Marx classics anyway, but they're good enough so that they'll hold up just fine after Duck Soup.
Unfortunately, Pierce's piece is rife with inaccuracies. Let me list some.
He says many of their films have their origin in musical theatre. Actually, only their first two do.
He says they remain relevant (true) as their oldest film creeps up on being a century old. Since The Cocoanuts won't be 100 until 2029, that's a fair amount of creeping left to do.
He makes certain claims for their importance that are a bit off--like how Animal Crackers made them national stars, not The Cocoanuts.
He claims Chico shouts "Abie the fishmonger" when it's "Abie the fish man."
He writes
the brothers’ next movie, Monkey Business, is a step backward in terms of stagey film work and dull subplots, but it also has some of their sharpest material, and is the first of their movies that Groucho doesn’t completely dominate. Horse Feathers is a lesser effort...
Whether Monkey Business is a step down from Animal Crackers is a judgment call, but it's ridiculous to call it stagier when in fact it's much more free and open--a real film, not just an adaptation of a stage play. And it's astonishing to hear Horse Feathers called a lesser effort--I'd say it's their only film that hits with a comic force equal to Duck Soup.
Regarding Duck Soup, he writes:
though studio bosses at the time blamed its lack of a romantic subplot for its mediocre box-office performance and mixed reviews, now, that absence makes it glide along as smooth and fast as a hunting shark.
No one had cared about Zeppo's romantic subplots in the previous two movies. Studio bosses were more likely to blame the lack of music specialties and the topic--satirizing world leaders.
Next he writes:
Stick around for their next two, a matched pair called A Night At The Opera (1935) and A Day At The Races (1937). Critics are often split on which is the better of the two; my money’s on the latter.
I don't think the critics are that split. I'd say they pretty definitively prefer A Night At The Opera, which is regularly called their best film along with Duck Soup.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:10 AM
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