Humor Him

I like the idea.  Humorist Roy Blount Jr.'s Hail, Hail Euphoria is a book--or at 144 pages, somewhere between a pamphlet and a book--about Duck Soup.  If any movie deserves a book, it's this one. Not a big hit in its day, it's now almost universally recognized as the Marx Brothers at or near their peak.  (Though one of my favorite blogs, The Marx Brothers Council Of Britain, rates it the lowest of the Paramounts.)

The execution, however, leaves something to be desired.  Blount basically sits down and watches the movie, describing it as he goes along.  At least half the book is his paraphrased version of the movie, and no description could compare to the actual experience  I'm not saying film essays shouldn't include some rehearsal of the work, but for a film I know back and forth, unless the explanations are highly amusing (which is not how I'd describe Blount's occasional attempts at Chicoesque punning), it's not really worth it.

The rest are his musings on the film and related items (such as director Leo McCarey's career), including quite a few anecdotes that are probably familiar to Marx Brothers fans.  While some of this is enjoyable, Blount can be amazingly sloppy: among other things, he twice says Horse Feathers was a stage piece written by George S. Kaufman when clearly he means Animal Crackers, he states Rodgers and Moss Hart wrote Pal Joey, he claims Woody Allen's character in Hannah And Her Sisters is Alvy Singer when that's his role in Annie Hall, and he misspells Merian C. Cooper.

Still, he has an easy-to-read style, and definitely gets the Marx Brothers, which is half the battle.  Also, he's read widely to prepare for the book, and occasionally comes up with insights into a movie that has been considered a classic now for nearly half a century.  Then there are all the neat photos included.

And, let's face it, no book about the Marx Brothers could be that bad. I recommend it, but it's got to get to the back of the line behind a bunch of others on the team.