Director: Sam Wood
Cast: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle
Have I Seen it Before: For the kid who watched more Turner Classic Movies than MTV in the `90s, it would have been hard to miss.
Did I Like It: I’ve often mentioned that, while enjoyable, the larger majority of the Marx Brothers films fall into that trap that a lot of early sound films fell into, where they are so irretrievably locked into the massive new equipment needed to record the sound* that all they can really do is recorded stage performances. Their movies so often stop entirely for musical numbers that aren’t so much a part of the story trying to be woven, but more akin to a follies revue, which can drag down the proceedings at times**.
This limitations probably works in the Brothers’ favor. Chico and Groucho are simmering cauldrons of snappy dialogue, so much so that if you aren’t certain you are going to have a pretty good time by the first time Grouch says something, then you’re lying. Still, they never would have worked on film during the silent era.
Well, Harpo would. So much so that—as much as I would want to talk about the greatness of Groucho—I think this review should be a celebration of everything that is Harpo. How good is Harpo? Consider the scene in the film where he, Chico and Ricardo Baroni (Allan Jones, pulling Zeppo duties for the proceedings) are being served pasta while being stowaways on an ocean liner. Chico smirks through the event, like he does through pretty much every scene he ever committed to film. Baroni blandly stares his way through getting a plate, impatiently waiting for the next opportunity to croon. In the high peak of the Depression, Harpo looks at that plate of spaghetti with such a longing that the noodles are liable to solve every problem he ever had. Even Chaplin couldn’t sell that level of hunger in The Gold Rush (1925). If you beat Chaplin at the Tramp game, you’re the greatest of all time. I bow before you, Harpo, and so does Charlie.
*More recently, some scenes shot in IMAX had something of the same problem. Maniacally motion-driven films suddenly got locked down to a static shot when “something big”(tm) had to happen.
**I can’t be the only one who fast forwards through 95% of the music guests on Saturday Night Live, right?