Yeah, I’m surprised I left that out. I could deal with the show-stopping pointless song if I had to, a lot of the best stuff is in the latter part of the movie. It’d still be great if not for that ending.
I’ll put in a good word for the best of their later films: A Night in Casablanca. It has at least one classic scene (the packing scene) that rates with their best, and generally is of high quality (though the ending is a bit tedious). It’s by far their most underrated film.
Room Service is also quite good, but it’s not a Marx Brothers film – they just appear in it. 
This thread is making me wish I had photos of myself as Groucho from this past Halloween online.
MD: Oh, Captain Spaulding, will this make him tell all?
G: We don’t want him to tell Al, we want him to tell me. Now hand me the knife. Why this knife isn’t sharp enough to cut butter. Did I ever tell you about the job I had at a Deli cutting butter? They fired me because they said I was too slick. (throws knife aside. Scream in background.)
Turn the telephone crank. Faster! Faster! Pretend your calling you friends to tell them you lost weight. (rolls eyes) Look behind you and you’ll find it.
MD: We need him to help us find the weapons of mass destruction.
G: Yes, I can see that you’d need some mass destroyed. Don’t worry, I’ll find out what he knows if it kills him (and it very well might). <turns to Chico, strapped to a table> Tell me, you rogue, how do you get your money? How do you get your weapons? How do you do? <shakes his hand>This is pointless. We need to use torture! (to MD:)Sing to him!
To: Marx Brothers
From: I. Thalberg
Perhaps it would be better to have Harpo strapped to the table?
Chico: How can he singa to me when he no can talk?
Harpo " Honk! Honk!
Chico: Okay, okay I tella everything!
Actually, Lydia was written by Yip Harburg & Harold Arlen, both of whom would go on to win the Oscar for writing Over the Rainbow.
If I were to list my 5 favorite Marx Bros. films, 4 of them would be from Paramount. But my all-time favorite will always remain Opera.
Didn’t Kalmar and Ruby also do an initial draft of what eventually turned into A Day At The Races? I think it was called Peace and Quiet at that point. Adamson’s description made P&Q sound a lot more appealing than ADATR.
But your main point is well taken: Marxian wit is best concocted with pairs and groups of writers with lunatic streaks playing off each other. Kaufman and Ryskind, Perelman and Johnstone, Kalmar and Ruby, Sheekman and Perrin. And the Paramount films were all written that way. Duck Soup had Kalmar and Ruby, Sheekman and Perrin; Horsefeathers had Perelman and Johnstone, Kalmar and Ruby, and Sheekman; Monkey Business (my personal favorite) lists Perelman, Johnstone, and Sheekman in the credits, but my recollection is that, according to Adamson, a few of the other names I’ve listed above were also involved. Animal Crackers had Kaufman, Ryskind, Kalmar, and Ruby.
Well, if we’re gonna go to that sort of extreme, let’s not forget the 1959 short, The Incredible Jewel Robbery, which was the very last time Groucho, Chico, and Harpo were on the same screen at the same time. IIRC, their average age was about 71 when they made that one. It’s not listed at IMDB, but not only does Adamson list it; I actually saw it once. (I think I’ve seen everything with all three essential Marx Brothers in it except Love Happy, The Story of Mankind, and the last half of A Day At the Races, where I got bored after the tutsi-fruitsi ice-cream scene.)
New thread:
Oh yeah, Paramount. In a rout. Knew I was forgetting something.
I’d rank Night at the Opera below Duck Soup, Monkey Business, and Horsefeathers, and above Animal Crackers and Cocoanuts. Why? Because the movie is divided up into discrete plot sections and Marx Brothers sections, and while the Marx Brothers sections (Mr. Gottlieb, Mrs. Claypool; The Party of the First Part; the Stateroom Scene; etc.) are very, very good, the boring stuff between goes on for too damned long.
The three bona fide movies the Marx Brothers did at Paramount don’t have an interlude from Marx Brothers humor longer than Harpo’s harp solo of “Everyone Says I Love You” in Horsefeathers.
One thing I also like about the Paramount movies is their unconventional twist on romance, at least for that era. In Monkey Business, Groucho’s flirtation with Thelma Todd’s character completely upstages Zeppo’s romance; in Horsefeathers, Thelma Todd’s character is supposedly Zeppo’s squeeze, but each of the other three hits on her as well (with each of them singing/playing different versions of “Everyone Says I Love You” to her), and in Duck Soup, Raquel Torres’ character was supposed to be Zeppo’s love interest, but that totally got squeezed out, and Groucho’s alternate wooing and insulting of Margaret Dumont is the only game in town.
I too think the Paramount pictures are the best, but I haven’t seen them in awhile and I can’t rate them here.
But I would like to observe that I dearly love The Cocoanuts, only because it’s filmed in such an amateurish, clumsy fashion that it results in a surreal home-movie quality. It’s like a little piece of film history - I feel like I’m watching an old Broadway musical right from the itchy old plush seats. And the brothers are so young and active, too.
I agree with you, Eve*, Zeppo was a handsome guy. I once dated a man who looked a lot like ZM, but since he had never watched a Marx Brothers film, he was nonplussed when I told him.
Oh, the pain and shame! It’s a good thing I’m so old I can blame my failing brain cells for such a lapse.
Me too.
I’m sure at least some of you (you know who you are) have heard of the lost Marx Brothers silent film Humor Risk, which according to a Bob Dorian segment on my early 90s off-air recording of The Coconuts was shown once and got a hostile reception. (I also read a website about it which says it may never have been finished. I don’t remember if Groucho and Me mentioned it, and I haven’t gotten far enough into Harpo Speaks to find out, but overall I know there’s very little information, and we don’t even know who did what apart from Chico being ‘Watson’ and Groucho being the villain of the piece.)
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d like to see the thing, and I don’t mean just for historical/completeness sake, I mean, I want to see how a silent Marx Brothers film would look like.
I really think I can understand why the film didn’t go over well. The Marx Brothers weren’t really suited for a silent film (apart from Harpo). Think about it, how the heck could you get Groucho’s breezy patter into a silent film caption. You couldn’t do it with a caption. Subtitles maybe, but then you miss his facial expressions and the rest of the action because you’re concentrating on the freakin’ subtitles instead of the actors! Seven Samurai works with subtitles, Shakespeare doesn’t. At least not well.
And that doesn’t even begin to get into it. Chico’s piano playing and Harpo’s harp preformances are gone, obviously, but that’s not all. Chico’s comic opera Italian accent gets lost as well, unless you write out his captions phonetically (and given that his character in Humor Risk is apparently named Watson, one of the world’s least Italian names, I gather they didn’t.) Finally, think about trying to do the “Why a Duck” routine with silent movie captions instead of Groucho and Chico talking.
So I’d really love to be able to see Humor Risk, if only to see what the Marxes had been like if they had been film stars in the Silent Era. I could see Harpo making the transition, but not the others (well, perhaps Zeppo, since you don’t have to have dialog to play the straight man.)
Glenn Mitchell’s Marx Brothers Encyclopedia summarizes all the printed references to Humorisk. It was a pun on Humoresque (a melodrama starring Fannie Hurst), making the one-word version of the title slightly more likely than the two word version, but no one can even agree on this.
Groucho said it was an attempt at Chaplinesque “humor with pathos,” but he also that it was a chance to become famous without his “dopey brothers,” so that’s probably discountable.
Wait, I found an online discussion that spares me from having to summarize the article:
http://www.whyaduck.com/ducklist/v1/01-084.htm
The other information in that post is less than reliable, though.
Farther down that page Zeppo is said, with no citation, to have played the straight man, “Pete the antagonist.” Maybe.
The supporting cast may have “included a married couple named Ralston along with a chorus line from one of the Shubert theatres.” There may also have been a scene set in a cabaret.
Nobody can agree whether the film was shown publicly and withdrawn or never even finished. Nobody can agree whether the film survived or was burned. Groucho was said late in his life to have offered $50,000 for a copy.
With the whole world now looking for it, it’s safe to say that no copy exists.
I sure don’t remember any references to a film of that sort in Groucho and Me. (This is the first I’m hearing of it.) But he did do at least one other autobiography, so maybe he mentioned it there?
Sigh.
None of my friends or acquaintances are even remotely familiar with the Marx Bros. Why o why can’t I meet people like you all in real life?
(sniffle) I love you guys.
screech-owl , rest assured the Marx Brothers still live at Universal Studios Hollywood. The “main” Groucho (there are several on the roster) perfectly mimics the original’s Brooklyn accent and witty delivery. There is also one good Chico and one good Harpo, and when they’re all three working together, it momentarily feels like you’re in 1933.
All three lookalikes must pass muster with the Marx estate, who watches them interacting with the guests on videotape (and I think a few come to the park in person).
I also want to apologize to everyone by speaking of the 3-pic Paramount DVD set, even though it’s out of print. What with Amazon, eBay, etc., hopefully there are still some copies available and not ridiculously expensive. Writing to Image (and to Universal, who owns the rights to the Paramount films) and stating your enthusiasm for another DVD set certainly wouldn’t hurt.
I, too, have been Groucho for Halloween, many times. I may have looked like him, but man, I couldn’t zing 'em like the master.
I read a biography of Groucho a while back and recall this film being mentioned. If I recall correctly, shortly after it was made he said he would do anything to bury it forever. Later near the end of his life he said he would give (50,000?) dollars to have a copy of it available. It is too bad if it is lost forever, it might be very interesting to see and contrast it to their later works.