My one hundredth posting—it's nice that it can be about one of the reasons I became a movie fan in the first place, the Marx Brothers. Just wait until we get to 1933 and I explain how Duck Soup landed me a job in Washington!
For faithful reader Who Am Us, I post here a famous sequence from their first movie (not counting a now-lost silent short from 1921 called Humor Risk, which Groucho later said was lousy), the 1929 hit The Cocoanuts.
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20 comments:
Sure, sure ... you came to Washington and accepted Groucho's offer of a job at the mint!
I no like mint -- what other flavors you got?
What other flavors? Well, we'll Passover that. And hey thanks for the clip. I haven't seen this bit in years & it just flat-out made my afternoon.
Hearty congrats too on the Myth Centennial.
Bellottootsy Fruitsy
I know that I'm in a minority, but after Duck Soup ["you'd duck soup for the rest of your life"], the Cocoanuts probably sits atop my MB faves list.
I know that it's the stagiest, and the most constrained by mic palcement and static cameras [big soundproofed buggers], etc., but I find that it
bristles
with Marx Brothers.
I guess I just like the gags
you know me: movie guy
PS like most folks, I set aside
Cocoanuts
Animal Crackers
Monkey Business
Horse Feathers
Duck Soup
then think
Night At
Day at
then, unlike others, I just lump in "other"
I've never ranked the Ritz Brothers
Nor the Hudson Brothers.
Now the Nicholas Brothers ! . . . .
Hmm. Interesting. I'm more of the traditional Duck Soup, A Night At The Opera man, followed by Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers and Monkey Business then The Cocoanuts and A Day At The Races. After that, they drop off significantly ...
That's if I were recommending them to some poor sucker who's never seen the Marx Brothers. But I personally will watch any of them ...
Well, any of them but Room Service ...
I wasn't actually ranking them; I was trying to say that I divvy 'em up by their Universal-ness or their MGM-osity, and ignore most of MGM and after.
Using your list, and modifying to my rank, (l) Duck Soup, (2) A Night At The Opera if I can edit the love story and reduce it to a 38-minute Marx Bro movie, (3) Cocoanuts, (4) Animal Crackers, (5)Horse Feathers (6) Monkey Business
me no day at races
how 'bout an essay on Klute?
Outside the box, break up chronology, show you're not a "twentieth-century" stidgy guy.
Bust out on Jane and Donald, and such. Opine on her hair.
just throwin' curve balls. Call me Micah Bowie. . . .
I wasn't actually ranking them; I was trying to say that I divvy 'em up by their Universal-ness or their MGM-osity, and ignore most of MGM and after.
Using your list, and modifying to my rank, (l) Duck Soup, (2) A Night At The Opera if I can edit the love story and reduce it to a 38-minute Marx Bro movie, (3) Cocoanuts, (4) Animal Crackers, (5)Horse Feathers (6) Monkey Business
me no day at races
how 'bout an essay on Klute?
Outside the box, break up chronology, show you're not a "twentieth-century" stodgy guy.
Bust out on Jane and Donald, and such. Opine on her hair.
just throwin' curve balls. Call me Micah Bowie. . . .
I've been watching alot of Marx Brothers recently with my kids, and we're with Mister Muleboy on this one. Seems like the Paramount films just have a higher gag/plot ratio that makes them hold up better. (I would rank them: 1. Duck Soup; 2. Horsefeathers; 3. Animal Crackers ("Hooray for Captain Spaulding" gives this one the nod); 4. Cocoanuts; 5. Monkey Business.)
I know, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races are more complete films, and they were far greater commercial successes, but it feels like too much of the wackiness has been filtered out and replaced with romantic subplot. The later MGM films are best for devoted Marx fans who can overlook the fact that the brothers look pretty old by this time. (e.g., Groucho's toupee in At the Circus, gives him more hair than he had in the first 5 movies combined.)
And even a devoted Marx fan like myself couldn't tolerate Room Service, which wasn't even written with the Marx Brothers in mind.
we're with Mister Muleboy on this one.
GodDAMMIT mister s. is a genius!
;-)
[re: R**m S*rvic* - I couldn't bear to type the name earlier. . . .]
Mister S, you've inspired me to write about this in more detail later on, probably when I sum up the Must-See Movies of 1929-30. You've got a real point about the MGM movies (A Night At The Opera and so forth) being more polished, less anarchic and improvised, than their earlier Paramount work. It's entirely possible that Irving Thalberg robbed them of their purity of essence and that as funny as some of their MGM work is, it's not as pure as their Paramount work.
On other hand, given the drop off in their audience, especially for Duck Soup which bombed at the theaters, if they hadn't adopted the Thalberg approach, there might not have been any more Marx Brothers at all. Maybe a loss of essence was necessary. (I won't speculate on what became of their precious bodily fluids.)
In any event, I advocate any approach to movie watching that encourages the most movie watching, as opposed to necessarily watching the same movies I watch. Call it a bipartisan approach ...
Oh, by the way, speaking of Klute, Mister Starkweather, I will be writing about that when I get to 1971.
Which at my current pace will be in about five years ...
"The Story of Mankind." Now, that's what I call a Marx Brothers picture!
(Well, somebody had to make the 12th comment.)
(Well, somebody had to make the 12th comment.)
Fuck you.
[there; now ya got thirteen. . . .]
What, are you still here? I would have thought two Katie Awards and a nice essay were your cues to get off the stage!
Get yourself home to Pickfair where you belong. I've got dinner waiting.
Well, you leave the kids alone with matches and a keg of gunpowder for five days and this is what you get -- Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford in a marital spat.
I'm back to blogging today -- had another of those drop-dead deadlines yesterday. I'm working on an essay about the Best Supporting Actress of 1929-30. As you no doubt recall, the nominees are Marie Dressler, Nina Mae McKinney and Seena Owen. One of them is going home with the Katie, the other two will no doubt haunt this blog for years.
the assertion of personality accelerates the assertion of personality
-- Douglas Fairbanks
Mythical Monkey Movies
2009
Or, put differently, Darwin would probably marvel that an assumed character could have a survival instinct
Wait a minute -- "assumed character"? Are you saying you're not Douglas Fairbanks? Just who have I been living with these last eighty-nine years?
Douglas, you are always welcome to stop in here at the Monkey to provide your usual pithy guest commentary.
By the way, for those who haven't seen the work of the legendary Douglas Fairbanks, I encourage you to jump on over to the Internet Archive -- www.archive.org -- and search for his movies. Click on "Moving Images" at the top of the page and do a search for "Douglas Fairbanks." There you'll find free, public domain copies of The Iron Mask, The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad and The Black Pirate for your viewing pleasure.
You can also track them down on DVD (I found The Thief of Bagdad at the library) or look for them on Turner Classic Movies from time to time.
Definitely worth the effort.
Are you saying you're not Douglas Fairbanks?
I'm no more "Douglas Fairbanks" than you're "Mary Pickford."
Have you read our respective birth certificates, Gladys?
-- Elton
What; you thought I meant something else when I said "assumed character". . . .?
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