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April 3, 2021: Duck Soup (1933) Time for talkies! That sounds weird, doesn’t it?The year after The General, the first writing was put on the wall for Keaton and Chaplin with the controversial film,...
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April 3, 2021: Duck Soup (1933)

Time for talkies! That sounds weird, doesn’t it?

The year after The General, the first writing was put on the wall for Keaton and Chaplin with the controversial film, The Jazz Singer. In that movie (which, yes, prominently features blackface, but moving on for now), the eponymous Jazz Singer talks on screen, with the audio being synched up to his mouth moving. This was the birth of the “talkie”, or a film with diegetic sound (sound coming from the film itself, rather than the score). The silent film industry heard the death knell rapidly approaching.

But from the death of one, comes the birth of another. Sure, slapstick would still persist in talkies, inheriting the remnants of the vaudeville era that Chaplin and Keaton heralded from. But now that sound was available, a whole new form of film comedy could be introduced. Enter: The Marx Brothers.

Leonard (born March 22, 1887), Adolph (born November 2, 1888), Julius (October 2, 1890), Milton (October 23, 1892), and Herbert Marx (February 25, 1901) were all born in New York City to German and French Jewish immigrants. Unsurprisingly, at least one of their parents (their mom, Minnie) was a performer, in a continuing trend with all of these guys. Her entire family were performers, especially her brother Abraham, a very successful vaudevillian who went by A Shean. The five brothers soon also fell into this profession.

The began with their uncle in vaudeville, and they became fairly successful. Originally known for their singing, they shifted to comedy after a performance in 1912. The two eventually fused, turning them into a comedy act with music in it. And at some point during this time period, the brothers were playing a poker game with a cartoonist, who gave the brothers their iconic names. Respectively, they became Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo. And a new troupe was born, but only on stage. It’d be another 17 years before they broke into film. Well, except for Gummo, who went to World War I, then never came back…to the theatre. Just wasn’t his thing. He went into the raincoat business! Anyway…

By 1929, two more things had happened: the first talkies had been introduced, and the Marx Brothers were one of the most popular theatre acts in the country. They also had some competition in that arena from two other acts. On stage, three brothers, Moses, Jerome, and Samuel Horwitz, also Jewish and also from New York City, joined up with a man named Ted Healy, and a comedian named Larry Fine, and formed the vaudeville group known as the Three Stooges.

Meanwhile, in silent film, British comedian Stan Laurel teamed up with American comedian Oliver Hardy, and the two made a lot of short silent films together, all of which were shorts. The tall, talkative, and rotund Hardy and the thin, stoic, childlike Laurel were a perfect pair and were known as, of course, Laurel and Hardy.

These two groups were worthy competitors, both for the Marx Brothers, and for Chaplin and Keaton’s form of comedy. And their popularity similarly built over the course of the 1920s. But the Marx Brothers were then given a unique opportunity, before any of the others had the chance. In 1929, Paramount Pictures funded a film, 93 minutes long, which brought the Marx Brothers to the big screen. And this film was a talkie, called The Cocoanuts.

The Cocoanuts was pretty successful, and certainly launched the career of the Marx Brothers. Laurel and Hardy had a talkie come out earlier that month, but it was a short rather than a feature film. And the Stooges wouldn’t be in a film at all until the following year! The Marx Brothers made the leap to the silver screen with verbal comedy, arguably before any other major comedians had the chance to.

The next year, Animal Crackers came out, launching them to even greater fame. This is especially in the case of Groucho Marx, whose greasepaint mustache and quick wit was a huge hit with audiences all over. They moved from New York City to Hollywood, and became bonafide movie stars. Monkey Business in 1931 was their first production not based on their stage acts, and was also a big hit. Horse Feathers in 1932 increased that fame EVEN FURTHER, and there was absolutely no way their stardom could increase from there.

Right?

1933. The Marx Brothers meet up with Leo McCarey, a director you may remember from An Affair to Remember, back in February. They reunite with Margaret Dumont, a comic foil to the brothers who had been in The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, and the honorary fifth Marx Brother, according to Groucho (sorry, Gummo). Paramount Pictures funded them for the last time, and the brothers would make a film that wouldn’t perform well in the box office…but is considered their great work on film, basically universally.

Let’s watch it, shall we? Time for some Duck Soup! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

After the opening credits, which includes a bunch of ducks in a bucket ON FIRE, JESUS, we enter the country of Freedonia, a small, bankrupt, and fictional country. The leaders, including President Zander (Edmund Breese), are asking wealthy widow Gloria Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) to give them ore money. She agrees, on one condition: that the President step down, and that a man named Rufus T. FIrefly (Groucho Marx) be appointed new leader of Freedonia.

At a party celebrating his ascension, we met Ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern), the ambassador of a rival nation, Sylvania. With his beautiful spy Vera Marcal (Raquel Torres), he plots to take over by having her woo Firefly. At this point, his secretary, Bob Roland (Zeppo Marx), arrives to the hall, and the group questions where Firefly is. They note that he’s always on time, and begin to sing the national anthem in anticipation of his arrival. Sucks that he’s still in bed.

He slides down a fireman’s pole as they continue to repeat the anthem, as if repeating a theatre cue, and begins…well, he begins being Groucho Marx. He spits out so many lines at such a rapid pace, it’s genuinely difficult to keep up with it while typing. Check out the scene yourself, if you’re curious! Best part is when Teasdale is talking about her late husband.

Get used to clips; I’ll be adding a lot of them, I’m sure. This segues into another song about the new laws that Firefly is planning on imposing with his administration. He forbids whistling, so I’m never going here. He also bans dirty jokes, smoking, chewing gum, amongst other things. He also basically promises that the country’s going to be far worse than it’s been before. So, yeah, promising.

This is interrupted by an appointment to see the House of Representatives, and he heads there with the help of his car’s driver, Pinky (Harpo Marx). However, the sidecar somehow isn’t hooked up to the motorcycle, and Pinky drives off without Firefly anyway. Funnily enough, the silent Pinky is actually a spy for Trentino, along with Chicolini (Chico). They go to report back to Trentino.

Their report reveals two things: they were tailing the wrong person, and they’re very bad spies. Disappointed, Trentino sends them back out for some reason, and they eventually get into a fight outside, which also involves a short-tempered lemonade vendor. Which is, unsurprisingly, another very humorous exchange.

After destroying both his livelihood and sanity, the two pose as peanut vendors and are quickly found by Firefly, who basically IMMEDIATELY appoints Chicolini to a government position, as the Secretary of War. Just then, Pinky steps in, answering a phone with his signature horns as a response.

After replying to all of Firefly’s questions with various pictures on his body (again, this is very funny), Pinky also leaves, only to be replaced by Bob the Secretary, who suggests trying to get rid of the two-faced Trentino by insulting him, with the intent to get Trentino to slap him, and give him cause to get rid of him once and for all. He once again gets in a car driven by Pinky to go there, only for Pinky to take off once again.

At the party, Trentino is trying to woo Mrs. Teasdale, in order to get her money. Firefly shows up, insults Trentino, only for Trentino to insult him back. He slaps Trentino in response, leading to the opposite intent, and Trentino declares that the countries are now on the verge of war. That night, Teasdale speaks with Trentino, who is to be summoned back to his country. However, he promises to remain if Teasdale can convince Rufus against war.

Rufus agrees to come over, and proceeds to flirt with/intensely neg Mrs. Teasdale. He meets with Trentino once again, who is also with Vera. After another confrontation in which Rufus makes a reference to an old song about my African Americans exist (it’s not called that, and it’s SO BAD, but it’s not with malicious intent; just ignorance), and war between Freedonia and Sylvania is even more likely than before.

That night, Pinky and Chicolini are sent by Trentino to infiltrate Mrs. Teasdale’s place, as Vera has discovered that the war plans were given to her for safekeeping (which we actually saw previously). As they search the house, Teasdale calls Firefly, and asks him to come over and take the plans. He agrees, and Chicolini (who was waiting for him at his room), takes the opportunity and locks him in his bathroom. He dresses up as Rufus and impersonates him to get the plans.

However, Pinky does exactly the same thing, leading to three of them in the same house. Chicolini and Pinky run downstairs, and Chicolini heads to get the plans, now knowing their location. He accidentally turns on a speaker, and runs off. He accidentally runs into a mirror, breaking it. This is just as Rufus heads downstairs to look for his imposter, and that…leads to arguably the most iconic comedy sequence of all time.

It’s in almost complete silence, and the two are so perfectly synchronized, it’s unbelievable. And it is VERY funny. I mean, it’s famous for a reason. It’s just genuinely a great sequence. But, at the end, Chicolini is caught, and we next jump to a trial, which is, you guessed it, very funny. It also produces on of Groucho Marx’s best and most famous one-liners.

Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you; he really is an idiot!

However, Mrs. Teasdale makes one last ditch effort to prevent war. However, Rufus talks himself out of the effort, slaps Trentino again, and it’s officially war. And what follows is…well, what I can only define as Marx Brothers musical number chaos. It’s war.

Also, I think that’s the last video I can add on this post. Damn, didn’t know there was a limit for that. Anyway, the whole thing is a crazy-ass production, followed by an insanely chaotic climax on its own. Pinky finds a woman he was looking at romantically earlier, and it turns out that she’s the wife of the lemonade vendor from before. He hides in the bathtub as he’s coming in, then erupts out of the bathtub playing a bugle when he comes in. It’s…it’s hard to describe, but it’s pretty funny.

War begins in earnest VERY quickly, and while this entire sequence is pretty amusing…it just reminds me that World War II is yet to happen, and that these guys have NO IDEA how bad war is going to get in the next few years. Whoof. Anyway, Chicolini and Pinky switch sides a couple of times, until eventually siding with Firefly. But pretty soon, the war destroys most of Freedonia, and Rufus, Chicolini, Pinky, Bob, and Mrs. Teasdale are all together in a shelter.

Trentino shows up, and he gets trapped in the door, as if he were in the stocks. The guys pelt fruit at him while he’s caught in there. Declaring victory, Mrs. Teasdale sings the Freedonia national anthem. The boys respond by throwing fruit at her instead, and…that’s it!