The Four Marx Brothers

If you wish to understand me and my sense of humor a bit better watch a Marx Brothers film.

Well, since I went into detail about one of Groucho's worst stuff (however Groucho on a bad day is probably still better than most people on a good day), I think today it's time to talk about Groucho's best stuff.

The Marx Brothers were probably at their peak when they were doing movies for Paramount between 1929 to 1933. And I enjoyed the movies they did for MGM like A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races and even At the Circus. I think Night at the Opera and Day at the Races were both two of the Marx Brothers last two really good film. And a lot of that might have had something to do with the death of Irving Thalberg during the shooting of Day at the Races. He seemed to have a pretty good understanding of what makes a good Marx Brothers film and MGM really didn't know what to do with the Brothers. Which is why many of the later movies with MGM just were not nearly as good.

And one of these decisions included MGM forcing Groucho to wear a toupee. Which was something Groucho absolutely hated.

Another thing that might have thrown everything off was the absence of Zeppo who left the group after 1933. Yes, he wasn't the funniest of the brothers. But he gave them a natural straight-man and perhaps romantic lead from within the group.

I'll be honest with you, I would have enjoyed Zeppo as the romantic lead in Opera and Races over Allan Jones. Or even over many of the supposed romantic leads in some of the later films.

But I think what made the Paramount years some of the best for the Brothers was not only having all four of them in the film but also I think they were given more freedom to do what the pleased in the film. Sometimes much to the chagrin of writers like George S. Kaufman and S. J. Perelman who would sigh with relief when the Brothers would actually use lines they had written in the script.

Nevertheless, that mix of great writers and having that freedom were two key ingredients why they were such fun films to watch.

And even the titles The Cocoanuts (1929), Animal Crackers (1930), Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932) and Duck Soup (1933) have very little to do with the plot of the movie itself. Which I think adds to that anarchic atmosphere of the films.

The plots are the continuity in the movies are secondary. It's the verbal humor that takes precedence. If you watch a Marx Brothers film both the plot of the film and even the ending are very vague.

If you've read my stories like Diary of the Black Widow or The Spaghetti Strand Murder and found that it seems like the stories are all setup with no punch line, then you can most likely thank influences like Spike Milligan, Monty Python and the Marx Brothers for that. I like that sort of chaos.

Most of the early Marx Brothers films end abruptly--tying everything up in a messy manner with no real punch line. And I don't say this as a bad thing. The only two film they did during the Paramount days that has any sort of semblance of an ending is The Cocoanuts and Monkey Business. Every other one there's never a clear ending. And end abruptly. And as much as I like those two films, I like the other three better.

They released all the Paramount movies as a box set several years back and I highly recommend you either purchase it or put it on your Netflix list. If you want to see comedy the way it should be made, watch the Four Marx Brothers.