A Girl in Every Port (1952)

Last year around May I got really sick. I mean to the point where I was stuck in bed for the good part of a week and even after I started feeling better I don't think I actually started feeling 100% for a good month or so. I drank a lot of liquids and couldn't eat a thing for a couple days straight. Even broth wasn't staying put for a long time.

I couldn't do much apart from sleep and watch television and a lot of movies on DVD. I watched a lot of Monty Python's Flying Circus and most of the Marx Brothers films I own. I have almost every one of their movies on DVD with the exception of Love Happy. Which was their last and I hear not their best. But this only means I'm going to have to finally watch it one of these days to see for myself.

I didn't have much strength to do much else. If I sat up for a period of time the room would spin. And not in a fun way.

Well, one afternoon while I was still incapacitated, I happened to see that TCM was playing a Groucho Marx movie I hadn't seen as of yet called A Girl in Every Port.

It was one I had been meaning to see for a while but to be honest, I'm fairly standoffish when it comes to Groucho's post Marx Brothers movies. Nonetheless, it was on television, I couldn't do much, so I watched it.

But there's a problem. I see Groucho Marx. I hear him quipping. But I'm not laughing. Something's terribly wrong here. Even the movie he did with Frank Sinatra Double Dynamite I managed to chuckle at the scenes and the lines Groucho spoke.

And this had nothing to do with being sick as a pike. I just watched At The Circus and laughed. But here, I couldn't even manage a sympathy chuckle.

Not only that, the supporting cast was less than engaging. I didn't find Marie Wilson who was supposed to be the love interest for Groucho Marx and William Bendix were vying for in the movie all that attractive. It's odd to describe. I just found her and the other actress Dee Hartford to be strangely unnatural looking in that movie. It's though they looked like they had some sort of plastic surgery done to their face. But I believe this was in the days before plastic surgery.

But I guess the best way to describe the way their faces look was very skeletal. Like I was looking at a skull on the desk of an anatomy class rather than a woman's face.

And don't get me started on the guy she ends up with at the end. Honestly!! She would have been better to have chosen Groucho Marx.

The biggest problem with the movie I think was they were trying to recapture a bygone era with their approach and it just did not look right by 1952. Things like whenever Groucho would have an idea there would be this music that would start which his buddy would hear as well.

This might have been funny if someone were to do it in the 1930's or 1940's. But it just does not cut the mustard by 1950.

And as I said, I like Groucho Marx. His use of quips is second to none and something that has been a big influence on my own writing and art. But Groucho's not an actor. And I'm not saying that in a bad way. Groucho was a comedian. A great comedian. He didn't play characters in movies. He played Groucho. And THAT'S what you went to a movie for was to see Groucho be Groucho. You didn't go do see Groucho Marx in Hamlet. You went to see Groucho Marx cut someone to the quick with a witty remark and double entendre. Or make some insulting remark while at the same time trying to woo Margaret Dumont when he finds out she has been left her dead husband's entire fortune.

And that's old Hollywood. Very few dramatic actors did comedies and very few comedians did dramatic movies. Even Charlie Chaplin who did movies that had elements of drama, kept the main character he played as with the overall clownish elements that made him famous as the Tramp.

But A Girl in Every Port is a good example how much writing affects Groucho's performance. I don't laugh at all during this movie and even Groucho's character I find annoying after a while.

But Groucho really faced the same problem the Three Stooges faced. They were still trying to do what they did when they were in their prime. But all you have is old men who are still trying to do pratfalls.

Jonathan Winters is another great example much like Groucho Marx when he's given the freedom to ad-lib he's brilliant. But when he's forced to stick to the script, it's never as funny.

The reason Chaplin's later films were enjoyable was Chaplin wasn't trying to reenact the Tramp in his 60's and 70's. His characters seemed to age with him.

I have the distinct feeling Groucho should have probably retired from the screen and become a writer. The books he wrote later in his career showed that he still had a gift for words and he might have had a very brilliant second career as a script or gag writer.

But it's hard for me to say. I can give my opinion but I suppose it's easy for us to look at the aged sports legend and say "Give it up! You're washed up and it's time to move on". Especially if they feel they still have something in the tank...

...I'm getting off the subject now.

In my opinion A Girl in Every Port is an example of a film trying to evoke the feeling of a bygone era but it just does not cut the mustard. All it makes me want to do is watch the old Marx Brothers films and watch a young Groucho Marx at the top of his game and in incredibly good shape.

If you've seen pictures of Groucho in sleeveless shirts in the 1930's, he was in pretty doggone good shape!!