Groucho Marx

  • Double Dynamite (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2021) Let’s skip to the essentials:  Jane Russell, Groucho Marx, and Frank Sinatra, together in the same film. No matter the results (and there’s a clear case to be made that Double Dynamite is far less explosive than its title), there’s an interesting clash of sensibilities right there. Of course, it would help if the three stars of the film actually played up to their personas. But part of the film’s problem is that it’s a comedy that thinks it can get mileage out of its stars acting off-persona. Why have Jane Russell, if she’s going to be this mousy character? Why have Sinatra as a meek bank teller? Marx is much closer to his established persona, but it’s worth noting that this was a film he did solo, in-between the end of the Marx Brothers’ film run and the career renaissance he experienced as a TV personality. As such, he is coasting on his specific charm without much of anything to back him up. (There’s something similar at play with Russell and Sinatra as well — Produced in 1948 and released in 1951, Double Dynamite slightly predates both stars’ fully-developed personas of their mid-1950s career peaks.)  I don’t want to suggest that Double Dynamite is a complete waste of time: it’s amiable enough, satisfying enough, happily-ending enough with two musical numbers with Sinatra and sufficient Groucho bon mots to make any viewer happy. But it’s nowhere nearly as good as you could expect.

  • The Big Store (1941)

    The Big Store (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) Nearly every Marx Brothers film is worth a few laughs, but there are still clearly superior Marx films and then the others. While The Big Store is not one of their worst, it doesn’t rank as a particularly good one. Made during their MGM years, it features three of the brothers wreaking havoc in and on a department store, as Groucho plays a detective asked to uncover a plot against the owners. Everyone plays their part, including Margaret Dumont as the rich older lady pursued by a gold-digging Groucho. As usual for Marx films of the period, the plot serves as a way to hang the sketches, and to provide a break from the comedy with easily skippable musical numbers that borrow a lot from operettas and feature the featureless Tony Martin and Virginia Grey.  (Virginia O’Brien, as usual, is more distinctive with a monotone take on a lullaby.) Harpo plays the harp, Chico does his wiseguy and Groucho plays with words. For fans, the two standout sequences of the film are a demonstration of increasingly wilder beds popping out of the walls, and a final chase through the entire store that finely upholds the Marx Brothers’s tradition of visually anarchic movie climaxes. As with all of their movies, it’s worth a look and possibly a box-set purchase. But it’s not one of their best, and the MGM structure clearly differentiates between the fun scenes and the dull ones in between.

  • A Girl in Every Port (1952)

    A Girl in Every Port (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) My answer to “Which Marx Brother do you find the funniest?” is immediate, constant and definitive: Groucho, always Groucho. His typical verbal wit is my kind of humour, and he was, to me, always the highlight of any of the Brothers’ movies. A Girl in Every Port is something slightly different, as we have Groucho without his brothers playing a sailor who gets embroiled in racehorse schemes while his ship is stationed in town. At no less than sixty-two at the film of the film’s release, Groucho is easily a few decades older than his character, but those (along with the painted-on moustache) are the conventions we have to play with if the film is to make any sense. The script is willing to complicate and overcomplicate its own fraudulent schemes until even the characters comment on easier ways of doing things. (But the gag of a horse being helped on a warship is worth it.) The result isn’t all that funny, but it’s amusing enough, and a welcome opportunity to have Groucho go for one of his last starring movie roles. Groucho himself may not hit any peaks of verbal humour, but he breaks the fourth wall quite a bit, and he gets his laughs. Don DeFore anchors the film as the henpecked victim of the scams, while Marie Wilson provides the romantic interest. Notably an early Irwin Allen production, A Girl in Every Port is probably best suited for Groucho fans and those who have the patience for an average comedy. But it’s fun all right, and who can resist Groucho commenting to the audience on the unlikeliness of his own movie’s plot?

  • The Story of Mankind (1957)

    The Story of Mankind (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) Oh, what a mess. Any movie that punches so hard through my suspension of disbelief that I start asking why it exists has already lost. In the case of The Story of Mankind, here we have a science-fictional “alien judgment” framing device looking at the history of humanity as an excuse to have small historical sketches conveniently casting as many known actors as possible. It’s hard to resist a film that had Hedy Lamarr, three of the Marx brothers, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Dennis Hopper (!) and Cesar Romero, but just wait until it begins and you’re served sketches that are neither funny nor profound, skipping ahead history to serve the usual bromides, with stunt casting that doesn’t really use the actors to their fullest extent – even the Marx Brothers appear in different scenes, and don’t play to their strengths. (I was waiting for the Groucho scene… I should have skipped it.) The film being directed by Irwin Allen, I half-suspect that the idea was for a grandiose statement with state-of-the-art special effects. Instead, we get sketches comparable to a high-school production, and a constant back-and-forth between trying to make a statement and trying to make jokes. The Story of Mankind is almost fascinating in its hideousness, but I really can’t recommend it as anything but a curio.

  • Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)

    Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2020) We often think of 1950s America as this unthinking haven of conformity, and that is nonsense—people back there were as smart as today, as skeptical as today, and as intent on satirizing the excesses of the day. From the get-go, with a scene in which Tony Randall addresses the audience and introduces the film (after a commercial break), Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is meant to be a satire of everything bothering the screenwriters about the then-modern era, and most specifically the burgeoning advertising industry. Midway through the film, it even stops its story for another interjection directly from Randall to the audience, this time lampooning the way audiences were increasingly turning to TV rather than the movies. It also, significantly, takes aim at materialism and corporate success at a time when such values were more likely to be championed, in Hollywood or elsewhere. As a social satire, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is often hilarious—although some of the references can need a handbook of the era to be understandable—I mean, it’s amusing to have a character read Peyton Place in the bathroom, or see Groucho Marx in a long-awaited cameo. Randall is quite good as the lead, although the film is perhaps equally notable for being Jayne Mansfield’s definitive film, and showcasing why she was such a bombshell (even though her appeal may not be as obvious if you’re not into vapidly-portrayed blondes à la Monroe). Seeing an older Joan Blondell in a supporting role is one of those jokes you may need a handbook for. Still, the film remains quite funny—lines like “I’ll be a writer’s subplot!” have a lovely metatextual quality decades before spoof comedies. They help the film feel substantially more modern than it is—even Frank Tashlin’s direction gets into it with imaginary sequences that weren’t the norm at the time. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? does suffer a bit from a lack of a clear climax, and a rather flat ending, although some of it does play into the film’s comedy. It’s an utterly fascinating film for those who would like another look at the 1950s—I put it up there with A Face in the Crowd and Sweet Smell of Success (both also from 1957, as is Silk Stockings and its “Stereophonic Sound” rant-number) as an informal cynical trilogy showing that some people in the 1950s knew exactly what the decade was about.

  • At the Circus (1939)

    At the Circus (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) In the grand arc of the Marx Brothers’ career, their move from Paramount to other studios is often seen as a hinging point—the Paramount pictures were anarchic, reflective of their vaudeville career and are still acknowledged as comedy classics, whereas the longer they worked outside Paramount, the more they became disciplined, comfortable with the medium of film and… duller. (Exception made of their first two movies with MGM, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, combining the best of both approaches.) At the Circus finds them four films removed from Paramount and clearly comfortable with the newer approach. Once again, we have the “at the” film title structure; we have Harpo harping (very well indeed), playing piano and miming his way through physical comedy; we have Chico fast-talking and jesting; we have Groucho singing “Lydia the Tattooed Lady,” quipping furiously and scheming to get money from an oblivious character played by Margaret Dumond; and we have a lead romantic couple singing their love while the Marxes wreak comedic havoc on their surroundings. It’s all the same as their other pictures… except that it’s not as funny. A high-flying finale does leave the film on a stronger note, but much of At the Circus plays like a thinner re-thread of the Marx Brothers’ best movies—still funny, sure, but not as much. Fans will like much of the material (I’m quite fond of Groucho turning to the camera at a risqué moment and wondering, “There must be some way of getting that money without getting in trouble with the Hays Office.”) although newcomers to the Marx Brothers would be better served by their other better movies.

  • Duck Soup (1933)

    Duck Soup (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, September 2000) In humor, there’s a tendency to assume that everything relevant was invented recently, but this Marx Brothers film shows that most comedy tactics were used well before our birth. Duck Soup isn’t a film to see for a strong plot (there isn’t one beyond stringing together a few vignettes), original characters (the Marx brothers basically play their specialties; Groucho with his verbal deftness, Guido with his pantomime and Chico somewhere in between) or cinematic qualities (though there are a few surprisingly modern sequences). But is it funny? Definitely. Enough to track down the film and see it as a group. You’ll be quoting from it for days after.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, January 2021) I was a bit worried about watching Duck Soup again—I first saw it twenty years ago, before I got interested in classic Hollywood or most other Marx Brothers movies, and I didn’t want another, much better-informed look to bring down my opinion of the film. I shouldn’t have been worried: despite being far more familiar with Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo than I was back then, Duck Soup remains one of their finest achievements.   Groucho defies convention at every opportunity as Rufus T. Firefly, dropping quips without a care in the world and indulging in still-amazing wordplay. The world of the Marx Brothers seems even more fantastic in Duck Soup than in other films, as they go for nationwide satire depicting how the nations of Freedonia and Sylvania are brought to the brink of war. Political satire and a wild war sequence combine in the last of the Brothers’ Paramount films—perhaps the slickest expression of their anarchic brand of comedy before MGM put them under contract and inside a more rigorous formula. While I think that some Marx Brothers had better individual showcases in other films (Harpo, in particular, seems ill served by this episode), Duck Soup is perhaps better at seeing them work with each other—the terrific “mirror” scene being the anthology-worthy illustration of that. Plenty of comic set-pieces pepper the film, but it’s the somewhat more mature tone—with a big helping of disregard for patriotic values—that makes Duck Soup just a bit more endearing to contemporary audiences. I loved it in 2000; I still love it in 2021.