The Marx Bros.--Paramount vs. MGM

Cafe Society
1

I see some Marx Bros. films have just been released on DVD [insert “BVD” joke here]–it seems to be their MGM work, from A Night at the Opera to A Day at the Races to At the Circus. Now, I adore the Brothers Marx (I even have a bit of a crush on Zeppo, who was pretty hot stuff in his day). And I’ll admit there are no completely unfunny Marx Bros. films–hell, put Groucho and Margaret Dumont in a scene torturing Iraqi prisoners and it’ll be funny.

But I also hold that MGM and the usually astute Irving Thalberg, bless their little cotton socks, neutered the Bros. and that their early Paramount films (Animal Crackers, Money Business, Duck Soup, Horse Feathers) were ten times the films their MGM work was. In the early days, Groucho was just an evil SOB; Harpo a girl-chasing, insane faun; Chico . . . well, OK, Chico was always just pretty much Italian puns.

Anyone else think the Marxes should have stayed at Paramount, instead of playing harmless, avuncular matchmakers for Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones?

2

I do.

The Marxes’ first five films are pretty great (you left The Cocoanuts out of your list) and three of them (HF, AC, DS) are available in a box set from Image… which is odd, because Paramount sold their pre-1950 library to Universal. The Marx Bros. lookalikes even wander around Universal’s theme parks. Universal has five of the greatest comedies of all time (well, not so much Monkey Business) and they just sell the home video rights away?

The new box set from MGM does have three great movies, despite the songs and romantic subplots (unless you count them as plots and the Marx Brothers as the subplots – the horror!): A Day at the Races, A Night at the Opera, and Room Service . ANATO, I think, is their best MGM movie. It has the stateroom scene, the contract scene, and some of Groucho’s best lines, such as:

“Ladies and gentelmen… I think that takes in most of you.”

“Nine dollars and forty cents? This is an outrage. If I were you, I wouldn’t pay it.”

And even the absurdity of a simple line: “And now, on with the opera.”

The MGM set leaves you stuck with the so-so Go West, At the Circus and what I think was the last film that featured the entire trio, The Big Store.

I say, buy both sets, get an empty shoebox, and put the good MGM films with the four good Paramount films. Such a set may never exist for purchase due to the complicated world of rights and royalties.

3

It’s been too long since I’ve seen a Marx Brothers movie but, from what I recall, didn’t their Paramount films also have romantic subplots and musical numbers? The only exception I can think of was Duck Soup (arguably their best movie) and that was considered such a box office disappointment by the studio that Paramount let the Marxes go. If that was the case, MGM was just following conventional wisdom in determining that 1930’s audiences couldn’t take 100% Marxist insanity in a movie and, thus, had to add songs and a love story involving non-comic supporting players.

As for Irving Thalberg, I wouldn’t necessarily place the blame on him. If anything, he was better at keeping a tolerable balance between the romantic subplots/musical numbers and the Marx Brothers’ comedy than L.B. Mayer and the other brass at MGM. I don’t think it’s a coincidencethat the quality of the Marx’s MGM movies went down after Thalberg died halfway through the production of A Day at the Races.

Aside from that, I have to agree with your original contention. On the whole, I think the Marx Brothers’ Paramount movies are better than their overly slick MGM movies.

4

It’s an interesting contention to make. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Night nor Day so I can’t play compare and contrast.

I can add that those movies are better constructed for a reason. According to “Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo,” Thalberg put a lot of effort into getting the scripts right. For both movies, the cast was sent on the road, vaudeville style, doing the comic scenes, and they would rewrite the scripts accordingly. They even made sure that during filming, there were long enough pauses after the punchlines so that the audiences’ laughter wouldn’t mask the dialog.

Unfortunately, Thalberg died during the production of “Races,” and the effect of his absence was noticed immediately. The Marx Brothers needed writers and they needed a whip hand to perform well, and when it wasn’t there, they coasted. (During their early days, their mother would stand in the wings during a performance, and if the boys became too rambunctuous on stage, she would hiss the landlord’s name at them, to remind them of the consequences).

After that, the boys’ career on screen went downhill, crashing at last with “Love Happy” (notable only for the appearance of Marilyn Monroe in a brief part).

Given, as one poster pointed out, that “Duck Soup” was the end of the line for the brothers at Paramount, we should be grateful that Irving Thalberg found a way to extend the boys’ run on the silver screen.

5

MGM was an odd, odd place. They took Jean Harlow and made her into a sterling comedienne; they groomed stars like Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and Garbo in a way no other studio might have.

Then again, they took the sexy, funny Jeanette MacDonald of Love Me Tonight, Monte Carlo, One Hour with You; and they sewed her vagina shut and teamed her up with Nelson “Easter Island Head” Eddy . . . Makes you wonder how much tougher and sexier Crawford and Harlow might have been at Paramount or Warner’s.

6

And MGM managed to destroy Buster Keaton as well.

I commend the other posters here for their astute comments on Marxist history, something all too rare even here on the world’s smartest message board.

Duck Soup was the wrong movie at the wrong time - a few years earlier or later and it would have been a hit. And the public really did want the musical numbers, or at least they most definitely wanted Chico and Harpo’s musical numbers.

What Thalberg did right has been covered. He sent team after team of talented writers to work on the jokes, he authorized the tour of the comedy scenes to hone them to perfection, and he understood what the contemporary audience wanted.

The huge mistake he made, from our later points of view, was to force the Marxes to have sympathy for the other characters, rather than contempt. Even in Night at the Opera they lose their lives as independent characters to become secondary to regaining Allan Jones’ dignity. They had common enemies so that wasn’t too bad. By the time of The Big Store, they were doing it for Tony Martin and not a producer nor director nor writer in the world could make that work.

And Thalberg also introduced the metaphor of the come-from-behind football game into the scripts. Toward the end of the movie, the heroes have to appear to have lost, to be on the verge of giving up, just before coming up with the big finale that would save everything. The opera worked because the Marx Brothers are thoroughly out of place at an opera. As Joe Adamson, author of the aforementioned and required Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo, has said, there is nothing out of place about the Marx Brothers at a racetrack. But that’s what a Day at the Races became at the end of the 17 drafts MGM forced the writers to produce. (The original ending was at a fire.)

Both of those movies made huge money for the day, so nobody argued with anything he said or did. What might have happened had he lived remains one of the major questions of Hollywood. But he died, and lesser minds took the superficial qualities of his vision for the whole and destroyed the brothers bit by bit in excruciating fashion.

Oh, did I mention that I prefer the Universal films? :rolleyes:

7

Much as it bugs me, I haven’t seen every Marx Bros. film. Of those I’ve seen, I’d rate them thusly: Duck Soup, Night at the Opera, and roughly a tie Animal Crackers/Day at the Races, Horse Feathers, and Monkey Business. I’d call that an even split between Paramount and MGM.

As Groucho wrote in Groucho and Me, MGM made better movies. They’re not necessarily funnier, but they’re put together better- the music scenes and the love story in Opera are listenable and don’t bring everything to a crashing halt like they usually do. (Heh, now that I think about it, Races actually has the worst example I can think of, where EVERYTHING stops for about 10 minutes while Alan Jones sings some lavishly produced thing.) I haven’t seen most of the later movies, but it does sound like they lost their way after Thalberg died.

On preview I see Eve makes some very good points about contempt vs. friendliness. She’s right about that. If I’d seen every Marx movie I’d feel a little more secure in commenting, but most of the ones I’ve seen I’ve watched dozens of times. One thing I’ve learned is that nothing ruins the Marxes.

8

Well, except for the one about [The Big Store being their last film together. It was followed by A Night in Casablanca, and Love Happy. And the same poster’s snarky comment about Monkey Business, which I’ve always thought was one of the best ever…the only Marx Bros. film which puts Groucho on the same footing as the others: not in a position of feigned authority, but as a fellow ocean-liner stowaway.

I’d like to derail the discussion, as I think we all agree that the Paramount pics were the best…how DID the final three Paramounts become so wacky?

The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, were, of course, based on the Marxes’ Broadway successes, and actually filmed in Astoria, Queens, rather than in Hollywood. Both featured love interest and sappy songs. Much like the cream of the MGM years, Night at the Opera and Day at the Races.

I want to know what happened between 1930 and 1935 that engendered the three greatest Marx films of all: Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup. The ones that were SO anarchic and surrealistic that the Marx Bros. are still names to conjure with, and have not fallen by the wayside like, say, a Wheeler and Woolsey.

9

Not anymore, at least not here in Florida. TMB, Laurel & Hardy, Mae West, and Marilyn Monroe were cut a couple of years ago, to be replaced with more (can’t remember the official phrase) ‘contemporary’ / ‘upbeat’ (again, not the words I am looking for) characters. Some character by the name of Lola Banana (?) was a Latina (Carmen Miranda-ish dancer singer), appearing with Desi Arnaz (of course with Lucy providing the typical nuttiness of trying to break into the act). Pretty much.

To be honest, I haven’t seen any non-cartoon-based face characters walking around the park, other than the Blues Brothers, Beetlejuice, and the Ghostbusters (and for the most part, they are out only during their shows).

10

I had no idea these films were back in print and out on DVD! Thank you all for tipping me off! I’ve been saying for years how much I wanted a good Marx Brothers box set, and even though this doesn’t have all their films (I haven’t seen them all yet anyway), it has my all-time favorite, A Night At the Opera.

You can get the Marx Brothers Collection box set:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001HAIP4/qid=1084155353/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3964939-5838560?v=glance&s=dvd

Or buy them separately, like A Night At the Opera here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001HAINQ/qid=1084155741/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3964939-5838560?v=glance&s=dvd

I am so excited about this!

11

I’ve been waiting for them to release a good box set of their movies and this sounds like a good one. Unfortunately, The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup are the movies I want because they are so much better than their later efforts. I can’t realy add anything to what has been said about the brothers other than this collection sounds good and I will buy it pretty soon. The extras sound interesting and worthwhile.

12

To be perfectly honest, while I think that their earlier work is generally better, A Night at the Opera is far and away my favorite Marx Brothers film, and one of my favorite movies, period. The problem is that the MGM flicks got worse in a sort of geometrical progression, ending with the horror of Love Happy.

13

While his contribution has been hotly debated by everyone, including himself, it did make a difference that S. J. Perelman worked on Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. There are any number of lines that feel like his. Will Johnstone, a highly-esteemed gag writer also worked on both. Then Burt Kalmer and Harry Ruby helped with Horse Feathers and did the main script for Duck Soup. They were the songwriters who had giving Groucho much of his strongest material (Lydia the Tattooed Lady and Hooray for Captain Spaulding). Plus additional dialogue by a bunch of literary wits of the ilk of Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin.

Their later films like At the Circus and Go West were written solely by Irving Brecher, reputed to have the fastest wit outside of Zeppo (not a typo), but also having the irredeemable handicap of being only one person, making it impossible for him to bounce jokes off his own head. But that’s what they were down to after Thalberg died and his protection vanished and they were left to the tender mercies of Louis B. Meyer who hated them.

14

And let us not forget The Story of Mankind, in which all three appeared (although not together so some purists don’t consider it).

I realize it doesn’t compare to DVD, but Turner Classic Movies apparently has broadcast rights to the entire Marx Brothers ouvre and sometimes shows them all in sequence.

15

Ah yes, the first Marx Brothers movie I ever saw - I was about five at the time, and it was at a drive-in movie.

Perelman, I think, had a lot of influence on Horse Feathers and Monkey Business by increasing the sophistication of the jokes. The “waxing Roth” line was in both his and Groucho’s NY Times obits.

From my reading of their bios, they had pretty much given up on the last few MGM movies, and did it for the money, which Chico at least always needed.

As for romance - I’m not sure there was much real romance in the Paramount movies, unless you count Zeppo and Thelma Todd in Horse Feathers. The first two are limited by the technology of the time, that immovable, loud camera, and while funny just aren’t as good as the later ones. Duck Soup is so far ahead of its time it is no wonder it didn’t make any money. I need to go off and watch it again, since it seems relevant today as much as 20, 40 or 70 years ago. Seymour Hersh, in the New Yorker article, put the momentum for the Iraq War, based on promises to the Saudis and the placement of troops in Marxian terms - “We have to have the war. I already paid a month’s rent on the battlefield.”

16

JasonG, don’t get me excited like that then let me down! When discussing releases that are currently out of print please use the past tense. I didn’t have a DVD Player until just after the Paramount films were pulled from the market. I thought for sure that meant an imminent re-issue of remastered pretty-looking releases with groovy extras, but I’m still waiting. As I read your post I thought my wait was over but no such luck.

There’s a guy selling a new, factory sealed copy of the three feature set on Amazon for $69.99, but I’m still hopeful that a complete set will be released.

Maybe once they see that people are actually buying the MGM collection of lesser films they’ll start to reconsider.

You can leave in a cab. If you can’t find a cab you can leave in a huff. If that’s too soon you can leave in a minute and a huff.

17

Sorry, as I reread my last post I realized that i had better get this in before someone else does!

Yes, we’re well past tents. We’re living in bungalows now.

18

On average, the original run of Marx movies tickles my funnybone more intensely… but my all-time favorite Marx-movie is A Night at the Opera. **Duck Soup ** probably second. I still haven’t seen Monkey Business…

19

You have to look at the producers, too—Paramount was an amazing studio, much looser and sexier than MGM (not to pooh-pooh MGM’s pre-Code movies!). Warner’s was noted for its gritty social realism films (even their Busby Berkeley musicals took place in a realistic Depression world of starving chorus girls that far from waitressing or the streets). To a lesser extent, Columbia did, too.

But Paramount! They did some jaw-dropping stuff before the Code lay its chill hand upon them.

20

Day at the Races also has one of the most cringeworthy scenes from a modern standpoint, where you have about 50 black guys seeing Harpo and breaking out into “It’s Gabrial!”.

It didn’t need to be in the movie, it wasn’t funny and…I think I’ll let someone else fill in from there.