Margaret Dumond

(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.