We know the scene is building up towards something but we cannot be sure. The audience searches for a pun or gag but it is not there. Even its first scene is surprisingly unfunny: a cabinet meeting where politicians beg for more money from a wealthy widow in order to fund tax breaks and avoid civil unrest. All their films are satirical to some degree, usually so subtly that people do not notice, but Duck Soup is so blatantly critical of politics, imperialism and war it has maintained a relevance few of their other films enjoy. At the time, it was not received so well, but today is regarded as a masterpiece and possibly their finest film. This is most obvious in Duck Soup, which does not even really bother to have an ending. If only today’s SNL-trained stars would pay attention to old masters…Īll these jokes are strung together by plots so thin they do not really matter and become a gag in themselves, which is another delight the Marx Brothers delivered so well. You will never be bored in a Marx Brothers film. Each brother has his particular skill and identity, and with so many brains contributing to the recipe that makes good comedy (not to mention the oft-unsung writers like Bert Kalmer and Harry Ruby) the films’ real challenge was editing their material down to a brutally short, but always sweet, 70 minutes. Of course, the film does not limit itself to opera, and therein lies the Marx Brothers’ other great asset: having such a large headline cast lets them explore many different subplots, mock many social mores and always introduce new things to the audience. For instance, A Night At The Opera both lampoons and fondly celebrates an art-form inaccessible to many so the film manages to appeal to both lovers and haters of opera.
Based on their old vaudeville routines, each film boasts a river of puns, a torrent of slapstick and a flood of musical interludes to satisfy any taste and tickle any elbow, whether crude or sophisticated. The secret to delivering such a relentless chain of gags is the sheer variety of them. If their art is best compared to the fans inspired by them, you know there is something unique about what they do. Put on any Marx Brothers film – yes, even the poor ones – and you will be hit by a gag rate so high its closest match is the Airplane! and Naked Gun masterpieces by Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker who freely admit to being inspired by and occasionally ripping off the Marx Brothers. Most critics simply label them as ‘anarchic’, which is a true but very broad summation of their style. The answer, I think, lies in the difficulty of defining their brand of comedy. So why do the Marx Brothers continue to shine among and above the myriad comedies produced since their heyday?
Many of early cinema’s comedians have long since been forgotten, their contributions recognised by historians but unfavoured by modern audiences who benefit from a century’s worth of fine-tuning and evolution of the comedy genre. The Marx Brothers still cast a long shadow over comedy cinema. Nevertheless they retained their surname amidst all their self-reinventions, and that is how history will remember them: as the Marx Brothers. Two of them would abandon comedy in favour of business, while the other three transformed themselves into their stage personae so successfully that it is still hard to know who the real individuals behind the laughter were. Who would have thought that film comedy would owe so much to five sons of an immigrant tailor from a pauper Jewish family in Yorkville, New York? Leonard, Adolph, Julius, Milton and Herbert would shed their modest upbringing to gain fortune and everlasting fame as Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo. If that’s too soon you can leave in a minute and a huff.” Groucho, Chico & Harpo get horny. If you can’t get a taxi, you can leave in a huff.
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