The Marx Brothers in The Cocoanuts — The Best Comedy of 1929

This review is adapted from my (in)famous eight-part, 12,000 word essay on the Marx Brothers which you can start reading here ... if you're so inclined.

By the time they filmed their first movie, the Marx Brothers were a well-oiled comedy machine with 25 years on the vaudeville circuit and three smash Broadway hits to their credit.

The Cocoanuts was worth the wait. It was one of the biggest hits of the year and, more importantly, introduced Americas to a brand of humor they had never seen before.

The movie was based on the stage play of the same name, a musical comedy (nominally) written by George S. Kaufman.

With half a dozen hits in five years, Kaufman was one of the leading young playwrights working on Broadway and his quick wit turned out to be a perfect fit for Groucho, who years later referred to Kaufman as "his God." (Kaufman later went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes.)

Kaufman built the play around the then-ongoing real estate boom in Florida and those of you familiar with the movie know the basic plot — with the help of a couple of disreputable guests (Chico and Harpo), the owner of a ramshackle hotel (Groucho) attempts to con a wealthy society maven (Margaret Dumont) into buying a worthless real estate development.

As always, though, the plot of a Marx Brothers production is simply a framework for a lot of gags, and The Cocoanuts featured some of the best of the Brothers' career.

"Think of the opportunities here in Florida. Three years ago, I came to Florida without a nickel in my pocket. Now? I've got a nickel in my pocket!"

"That's all very well, Mr. Hammer, but we haven't been paid in two weeks and we want our wages!"

"Wages? Do you want to be wage slaves, answer me that."

"No."

"No, of course not! Well, what makes wage slaves? Wages!"

To Kaufman's consternation, the Brothers also tended to ad lib throughout the show ("I think I just heard one of the original lines," he quipped at one performance) and in fact the best-remembered bit in the entire show — the "why a duck?" sequence — evolved from just such an ad lib.

The Cocoanuts ran for 377 shows before heading out on the road, a stripped-down production Groucho called "inferior," by which he meant that the chorus girls were neither as pretty nor as willing as their Broadway counterparts.

The audiences weren't inferior, though. The road show version of The Cocoanuts was big business, and the Los Angeles opening was attended by the likes of Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Greta Garbo.

United Artists had first approached the Brothers a year earlier about turning The Cocoanuts into a film (imagine the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin working out of the same studio), but balked at the Brothers' asking price of $75,000 for the film rights.

Paramount's Adolph Zukor balked, too, but then found himself upping the offer to $100,000 during dinner with a particularly eloquent Chico.

In January 1929, with the Brothers still performing their follow-up hit Animal Crackers on Broadway every evening, filming of The Cocoanuts began at Paramount's Astoria Studio on Long Island, New York. Paramount's east coast studio had been used for years to film New York-based acts such as W.C. Fields, but it had yet to fully convert to sound (or even sound proofing) when principle photography began.

Most of the filming took place in the early morning before the noise of traffic made sound recording impossible.

As a finished product, The Cocoanuts suffered from all the problems associated with early sound pictures. Primative sound recording equipment required the camera — and thus the actors — to remain rooted in place, a particular problem for Groucho who had trouble finding his marks anyway.

In addition, early microphones picked up sound indiscriminately. To muffle the sound of crinkling paper, every telegram, letter or map you see was soaked in water before each take (there was no muffling the sound of the crew's laughter, however, which ruined many takes).

The initial cut of The Cocoanuts ran nearly two-and-a-half hours, quickly trimmed after a preview to 96 minutes, mostly by dropping musical numbers. The film premiered in New York on May 3, 1929. The Brothers, who were performing down the street in Animal Crackers missed the show, but their mother Minnie was in attendance.

New York's critics were, at best, mixed in their reviews — prompting the Brothers to offer to buy back the negative from Paramount so they could burn it — but in the rest of the country, The Cocoanuts was a sensation.

Only two years into the sound era, movie audiences had never before seen, or more to the point, heard anything like Groucho's nonstop wordplay, and the film wound up grossing $1.8 million on a budget of $500,000, enough to rank seventh on the year's list of top-grossing films.

So where does The Cocoanuts rank among Marx Brothers films?

In the context of the times, there was nothing like it. Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd had made better comedies during the silent era, but (naturally) nothing relying on lightning quick verbal wit.

On the other hand, the Marx Brothers themselves quickly surpassed The Cocoanuts with their next film, Animal Crackers (more about that later), and would continue to surpass themselves with the likes of Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races.

Not until the dud Room Service in 1938 did the Brothers fall short of their own lofty standards. After that, the Marx Brothers made a series of serviceable comedies (mostly to keep the spendthrift Chico out of hock).

Should you see The Cocoanuts? Absolutely! And then see Animal Crackers and keep seeing the Marx Brothers until there are no more then start over again.

And why a duck? Cause if you try to cross over on a chicken, you'll find out why a duck!