THE MARX BROTHERS: S/D

I think Animal Crackers is my favorite. Coincidentally, it was the first one I ever saw by them. It seems to represent them at their, (yes, I will use the word) "anarchic" best.

Duck Soup and Horse Feathers for me.

love these guys -- i still go through a phase every couple of years where i have to watch all their movies (though i never got around to any of the ones they did after day of the races -- i've tried a couple of them and they're just painfully stiff, not to mention it's depressing watching them get old). everything up through night at the opera is untouchable.

one of my favorite film-related books ever is this old book from the 70s called "the marx brothers scrapbook," with tons of amazing pictures and wonderful interviews with the remaining brothers. groucho swears nonstop in all his interviews (no, REALLY swears, like all the words you'd never imagine lovable old groucho saying), bitches nonstop about all his brothers, suggests that (then-president) nixon ought to be assassinated -- he was apparently horrified when the book came out because he'd assumed the author would cut all that stuff out!

Pretty sure it was Animal Crackers I saw first, on network TV in 1979 or something in the evening! Those were the days.

I remember A Night in Casablanca being pretty good, definitely better than the other late-period ones I saw, but it's been a while.

But yeah, Duck Soup, Horse Feathers, Monkey Business.

I think Morbs OTM, but my favourite single scene has to be the stateroom scene in Night of the Opera, such a beautifully constructed piece of comedy. The pre-MGM one benefit from having been fine tuned as stage shows; the timing is sharper.

v sad joke from (i think) the big store, with chico getting groucho to pose for a photo —

"just look at me and pretend to laugh"
"i've been doing that for thirty years"

okay this is kind of a standard but the particular resignation with which groucho says it makes it queerly affecting

POO: 'go west' versus 'night at the circus' versus 'the big store'

(totally 'night at the circus', it's incredibly incredibly creepy)

The last big bio of them has a very funny story about the eulogy at Chico's funeral, tho of course I can't recall enough details to make it work.

A Night in Casablanca is watchable cuz Harpo is the star. At the Circus has "Lydia the Tattooed Lady."

The Cocoanuts is a pain to watch, so slow and primordial, and they sort of take a backseat to the plot.

Ed, I'm pretty sure the first 2 MGM movies were pretested on stage -- the comedy routines, that is.

I saw a Groucho imitator a year or so ago, great show at an elegant venue. He did lots of songs and had audience participation and was basically all over the place while documenting his entire career.

I <3 Marx Brothers, and they don't get enough credit. Harpo and Groucho type humor is especially not prevalent nowadays - crazy unique stuff. For some reason last night before I went to sleep I was thinking about the end of Duck Soup when they throw tomatoes at the fat lady singing the Land of Freedonia song.

A Night in Casablanca is watchable cuz Harpo is the star.

thx now i have an excuse for not having seen it

booooooooooooooo

Captain, I think that might be the guy who played "Groucho" in the Broadway pastiche of their films? or in their musical bio, Minnie's Boys?

the fat lady, Margaret Dumont, sposedly used to ask Groucho (nee Julius), "Julie, why are they laughing?"

it supposedly extended beyond just that instance -- no less than isherwood wrote about how m. dumont kept the fairly-person persona intact for the better part of a 30 year acquaintance with the bros.

oh yeah, she was clueless, it seems.

uh wait what

does that make the marx bros more or less funny? i mean she wouldve had to have been borderline retarded to not get it

she just didn't find it funny?

but yeah, I like the insults she gets in all the movies... horse feathers for instance.

you & me together margaret, i can see it now...our children laughing, you leaning over a hot stove...i just can't see the stove...

This must be a gala day for you.

The Marx Bros. bits were the best parts of the first few years of Cerebus.

and who has ever met a Zeppo fan?

the brothers:

harpo
groucho

the other brothers

mr. and mrs. marx

the brother who invented the zip-ties still used on airplanes

zeppo

did Gummo invent the zip-ties still used on airplanes?

harpo marx is the worst marx brother

the fact that you bring up zeppo at all is proof of this

LOOK AT CHICOLINI...HE SITS ALL ALONE

gummo's laundry basket:

http://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/gummo/1320335_1s.jpg

zeppo's moisture delivery pad:

http://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/zeppo/2590026-1s.jpg

Harpo is fantastic deeznuts wrong as usual

C'mon, don't perpetuate the old myth about M. Dumont. Enough already.

^^i was gonna say CT

shakey, chico is bro-est of the bros, groucho is hilarious & incisive & a model for us all, harpo annoys the shit out of me by playing his fucking harp because hey guess what he doesnt do shit but play along w/ chico & PLAY HIS FUCKING HARP

fast-forward

Harpo is a mischevious child-like mute with a bawdy side and innumerable handy objects stored in his trousers. How any human can dislike him is bewildering.

harpo dropping random unlikely stuff out of his coat sleeve = classic

harpo marx is the worst marx brother

of all the lame shit you've said this takes the cake forever

seriously like hating on Harpo is publicly admitting "I have no sense of humor at all"

Well when Harpo played his harp, it was a mystery
All the laughing stopped back to the balcony
Chico, Chico, sure to please
Now let's watch him shoot the keys
When Harpo would play his harp, all was still

When Harpo played his harp, it was a dream, it was
Well if someone else can do it, how come nobody does?
Groucho, Groucho, fast as light
Some talk like him but not quite
When Harpo would play his harp, all was still, still

Well Harpo Harpo
This is the angels and
where did you get that sound so fine?
Harpo Harpo
We gotta hear it
One more time

Harpo Harpo
We're in the galaxies and
where did you get that sound so fine?
Harpo Harpo
We gotta hear it
One more time

Do you remember what he would do sometimes before he played?
Well he'd look up to the sky and he'd look the angels' way
Harpo Harpo, when you start
Tears of joy inside my heart
Harpo would play his harp and all was still

Out of many many examples, without Harpo there's no kicker to the swordfish scene. Therefore you = wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZOlrZNIod0

anybody who can watch that without laughing should be killed

J0hn's words about deez's immortal ineptitude could have come right out of my mouth

yeah, this is one thread where I'm happy to join in on a group slam against deeznuts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmXOBKQ6A1E

I dunno how anyone can watch Harpo's face and not laugh

Was just reading about Harpo in Oscar Levant's memoir- he's got a whole chapter on him- about the time Oscar meet a cute girl and wanted to date her and she said "first your family has to meet my family." So Oscar showed up at their mansion one night with Harpo, saying he was his uncle. Chaos ensued, just like you see in the movies.

I got to see Minnie's Boys about a month ago. I really love that one song ("Mama, a Rainbow").

So the great "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" was written by Arlen and Harburg, right? But lots of their other songs were written by Kalmar and Ruby, I think.

Although apparently a lot of those didn't make it into the movies, I see.

like "Show Me a Rose"? Yes, that was Kalmar-Ruby I'm pretty sure. Welcome back, Ken!

deez reveals idiocy to a unanimous throng

"Most people have a conscious and a subconscious," he said of himself. "Not me. I've always operated on a subconscious and a sub-subconscious." Ben Hecht recalls that Harpo had only to float into a room full of people, and his relaxation, contentment, charm, and good will would contaminate the assemblage. The best time to try to understand this man is when you're sound asleep and the cosmic forces deep inside your consciousness are in total command....

...As for Harpo, his best summation of himself was: "I am the most fortunate self-taught harpist and non-speaking actor who ever lived.
-Jose Adamson's Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo: A Celebration of the Marx Brothers

I've been trying to find movies that are as funny as these, or actors who are as funny as these guys. Or at least sort of in the same ballpark. Certainly in the 20s and 30s there was a lot of comedic talent around. Does anything else from then exist that was witty like the Marx Brothers? Anywhere close?

For me, the marx bros are like the beatles to gier. sorta the starting point going in either direction, and the benchmark for everything else.

i wish more you bet your life was available than is available.

i seen all the you bet your lifes available on youtube, fun stuff

w.c. fields is almost as funny as the marx bros, though much more lowkey -- no one else's in the same ballpark.

Yeah that's a high point I their filmography

Having both that and the mirror scene in the same film is kind of crazy, the more I think about it.

Steve Allen used to do a joke "Edgar Kennedy died today in the slow-burn unit of Cedars Sinai..."

(in later years it was hardly worth telling cuz first he had to explain who Edgar Kennedy was)

Yeah the mirror scene totally killed me when I saw it. "So that's where Bugs Bunny got it....."

"Duck Soup" is streamlined yeah, and probably the best Marx Bros. movie cos of it. I just really love seeing Chico shoot at the keys.

Yeah the mirror scene totally killed me when I saw it. "So that's where Bugs Bunny got it....."

I saw a couple silent Charley Chase shorts that McCarey directed in 1924-26, and in one called Sittin' Pretty that Chase and another actor do a mirror scene that is not only close to the one in DS, but has some of the same reaction shots! Have heard there were other mirror scenes too, so not a Marx invention.

Some of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4VdIZLiRec

pretty sure the mirror scene gag happened in theatre/vaudeville too!

no doubt

They kind of cemented it for all time, though

Max Linder's mirror scene in Seven Years' Bad Luck is one of my favorite incarnations, though it's not the first on film.

I assume same director, similar staging, this is the closest antecedent.

Nice! I wonder if the Marx Bros. invented the stepping-in-the-mirror/switching places variation...

Pretty amazing how that scene has no dialog at all and the characters are dressed exactly the same and yet the personalities still come through clear as a bell!

that's Hal Roach Studio silent comedy

mccarey ripped off his own (older) work all the time! and why the hell not?

btw this might be the funniest short i've ever seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXQANS-V0YA

Max Davidson, Spec O'Donnell?

Rob Zombie has acquired the rights to a memoir about the late legendary comedic actor Groucho Marx. The book is by Steven Stoliar and is called Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho’s House. Deadline is reporting that Zombie will direct, co-produce and co-write the screen adaptation of the movie....

The memoir is about the last few years of Marx’s life, from the perspective of a young fan who is hired to be a personal assistant to the Marx Brothers. On his Facebook page, Zombie simply wrote “my next film” and linked to the Deadline article. He also changed his cover photo to a picture of Marx.

Zombie will share screenplay co-writing duties with Love & Mercy writer Oren Moverman.

http://loudwire.com/rob-zombie-groucho-marx-movie

oh fuck that

plum role for Woody Allen

I enjoyed Stoliar's awkward book but can't imagine the point of this, beyond whoever gets the Erin Fleming role imagining it to be a careermaker

maybe a Kardashian

rmde

I got the Captain Spaulding reference in that one movie. The movie itself was trash, admittedly the kind of trash some people enjoy, but I thought it was just trash. His whole deal just reminds me of that era in the 90s where everyone in the bands would stare really bug-eyed and try and look like a psychotic clown when they played. Rob Zombie is a living Hot Topic.

Still I am interested because there is a massive gap in Marx Bros. stuff aside from the original movies and one or two documentaries of talking heads talking about those movies.

basically all the Old Groucho you need is in that TV box set from last year, and Gilbert Gottfried's impression.

Richard Pryor ran into Groucho in the mid '60s at a party at Bobby Darin's house, a few days after Pryor and Jerry Lewis had been spitting water on each other on The Merv Griffin Show. Groucho asked Pryor, "Do you want to have a career you can be proud of, or do you want to be a spitwad like Jerry Lewis?"

started reading this article, got halfway through and went "who the fuck is this old fart," then scrolled up and glanced at the byline and went "...oh."

http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/2047/jews-on-the-loose/

Groucho's FBI file

https://vault.fbi.gov/Groucho%20Marx

GRAUCHO

lol

Groucho's Mexican cousin I assume

'best copy available' deserves a pun

the letters from concerned citizens who want to warn mr. hoover about groucho's communist leanings are particularly wonderful

'if i lean any further i'll be in back of you'

Saw Monkey Business last night, and I would rank it second after Duck Soup. But my all-time favorite Marx Brothers moment comes in A Night at the Opera, after Groucho looks at the check for dinner: "Nine dollars and 40 cents? Thats an outrage! If I were you I wouldn't pay it!"

I was just gifted with this book!

https://www.austinchronicle.com/screens/2019-03-22/what-if-the-marx-brothers-got-around-to-making-that-movie-with-salvador-dali/

I learned about and promptly forgot about that book because its existence feels mythical. Must buy.

Maybe my favourite exchange in cinema history:

Mrs. Teasdale: What's that?
Rufus T. Firefly: Sounds to me like mice.
Mrs. Teasdale: Mice? Mice don't play music.
Rufus T. Firefly: No? How about the old maestro?

Maybe it's just because I've taught college, but my favorite Marx Brothers scene is Groucho in Horse Feathers trying to teach a science class, with Chico and Harpo as students who keep heckling him. "Any questions? Any answers? Any rags, any bones, any bottles today, any rags?"

"Any questions? Any answers? Any rags, any bones, any bottles today, any rags?"

I had a high school teacher who used to say this all the time. Had no idea what she was talking about.

It's really hard not say, if you're a teacher and you've watched that scene enough! So far I've resisted, but I know one day I'll crack.

"really hard not to say," that is.

Hat slap gag

This is a long time favourite of mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZvugebaT6Q

"any rags, any bones, any bottles today?" is a riff on this now-forgotten Tin Pan Alley song from the 1900s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A908CsCxmJg

should warn anyone listening that the song is fairly racist, btw.

i'm a sucker for the sanity clause bit.

watching a night in casablanca for the first time in my life

very hefty fez content

Heh

I think I've finally reached the age where I might be ready to reassess these guys (positively)

TIL that harpo's wig was generally pink

"Any questions? Any answers? Any rags, any bones, any bottles today, any rags?"

When I hear someone say "Any questions?", my brain keeps telling me to answer "Yeah, when you gonna cut open the watermelon?"

https://grouchoandcavett.com/
^this was good

Always happy when I'm reminded that their father was French and was nicknamed Frenchy into the bargain.