Duck Soup

[Damien]

trying to convince anyone that some one/thing is funny is like trying to say pineapple or cocoanut taste wonderful -- if you just don't like the flavor, there's nothing to be said. (Don't even try persuading me that many of today's "comedy stars" -- Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler -- are even faintly amusing)

Two comic actors I find excruciating to watch are Danny Kaye and Red Skelton.

[Mister Tee]

I'm sorry to chime in so late on this. But the whole conversation reminds me of when Dorothy Killgallen finally went see a W.C. Fields movie in the 60s. She wrote: "I was right: he's not funny".

Damien's correct: trying to convince anyone that some one/thing is funny is like trying to say pineapple or cocoanut taste wonderful -- if you just don't like the flavor, there's nothing to be said. (Don't even try persuading me that many of today's "comedy stars" -- Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler -- are even faintly amusing)

But the Marx Brothers...

Like Magilla, I knew Groucho from You Bet Your Life long before I saw the Brothers' films. And the first of them I caught -- Room Service -- wasn't anywhere near top-tier (I watched it because I was tracking down film versions of long-running plays).

It wasn't till college that I started to see the classics, but in a most happy circumstance: Horse Feathers, Duck Soup and A Day at the Races were shown marathon-style at Nothwestern, in conjunction with a Groucho speaking engagement -- an event I wouldn't have missed. He was a tad slowed down by then -- it was just four years short of his sad Oscar appearance -- but still sheer delight.

I caught the rest of the great films -- Opera, Monkey Business, Animal Cracker and Cocoanuts -- over the two or three years following. Though there are soft spots in all, there's not one that doesn't have moments that destroy me. (Even the passage Mike Kelly quotes below makes me laugh out loud) I think Duck Soup is viewed as the best partly because it's so anarchically hilarious, but also because McCarey was the only first rate director to work with the team.

But I have to cite Monkey Business as my personal fave. As others have said, however, it may have simply been context: I'd driven to Boston to see a girl I was mad about, and we went to see it in a repertory house with avid college fans. But no one will convince me the scene of all the brothers trying to get off the boat impersonating Chevalier isn't genius. And, for me, one of Groucho's greatest moments came when he got a snooty waiter to give him a glass of champagne by waving a ten-dollar bill:

Groucho: You see this?
Waiter: Yes, SIR.
(Groucho takes the glass and drinks it down)
Groucho: Come back in an hour; I'll let you see it again.

If that doesn't make you laugh, I don't know what to say to you.

[Okri]

Buster Keaton rocks.

But the Marx Brothers are awesome too.

[Damien]

You can't really argue comedy (at least movies that are built around one or more comedians, as opposed to more plot-based comedic films) -- either you get someone's humor or you don't.

I do find it hard to believe that someone would not be at least amused by the Marx Brothers -- at its best, their inspired absurdism was a vaudevillian equivalent of Dadaism. What was especially noteworthy is that they managed to make themselves -- with their crazed personae -- seem like the sane ones while it was the "normal" world that made no sense.

Duck Soup is generally considered their best film, because Leo McCarey's improvisational style of film-making was perfectly suited to the anarchist attitude of the Marxes. McCarey's pacing was almos more more fluid than that of the other men who directed their Paramount vehicles (Victor Heerman, Norman Z. McLeod). Although A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races have wonderful moments they're saddled with musical numbers and callow romances (even if in Opera Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones are likable presences).

I think the Marx Bros have been somewhat over-rated, especially in the 1970s when they replaced W.C. Fields as the most popular old time comedians on college campuses (they themselves were later usurped by The Three Stooges). Harpo is always a bit of a bore. But sometimes the verbal pyrotechnics and the graceful slapstick are exhilarating.

I've mentioned this before, but I've never been able to stand Charlie Chaplin (except in Monsieur Verdoux). He is so self-reverential (he always posits himselfs as the most sensitive and most feeling creature on God's earth) as to be nauseating. Plus, I just don't find him funny. (Richard Pryor is another one whom I just sat there watching blank-faced.)

Silliness and slapstick make me laugh, so I love The THree Stooges. Although their absurdism is of a somewhat different brand than the Marxes, it is even more pronounced.

My favorites, though, will always be Laurel & Hardy (I consider them the anti-Chaplin, because anytime they -- due mostly to Ollie's comic vanity -- started to have an elevated opinion of themselves and their abilities -- the results were hilariously self-deprecating), with W.C. Fields close behind

[FilmFan720]

I am not even going to touch the Woody Allen comments, as I think you all know where I stand (somewhere between Damien/Vincente Minnelli and Eric/Brian De Palma). I will say, however, that Duck Soup is brilliant, but give me A Night at the Opera any day. The cabin scene alone is the most brilliant moment in cinema history.

[Big Magilla]

I guess my problem was that it was humor for the sake of humor. There was virtually no plot. The Netflix sleeve said it was a political satire, but I couldn't see anything truly political in it.

It was a political satire of its time. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini banned the film from Italy because he thought it was a direct attack on him. When news of this reached The Marx Brothers, they were reportedly ecstatic. However, when asked what the political significance of this film was, Groucho reportedly said, "What significance? We were just four Jews trying to get a laugh."

Shortly before the film premiered, the city of Fredonia, New York, complained about the use of its name with an additional "e". The Marx Brothers' response was, "Change the name of your town, it's hurting our picture."

[OscarGuy]

See, I thought Airplane was generally funny, BUT I still only gave the film 2.5 stars.

[Zahveed]

Do parodies, satires, and farces ever rely on plot enough to even consider it being that important? If you were a fan of more recent and somewhat comparable work such as Airplane!, and the like, then this should be up the alley somewhere.

[OscarGuy]

All the Duck Soup was was a comedy act. It was Vaudeville on the big screen. That's it. Films you listed such as Dr. Strangelove and Some Like It Hot had plots. Sure, they were well-rooted in comedy, but they were plot-driven with the comedy serving the plot. Duck Soup has no plot to speak of. It is not a film as much as it is a long-form comedy sketch. As a film, it's not subversive, it's not interesting and it's not worth watching again. As a feature-length comedy routine, it may be worth something.

It would be like comparing For the Birds and Citizen Kane. Both are excellent uses of the medium, but they are so different that they are rightly categorized separately. I can respect what the Marx brothers provided for the future history of comedy, but I can't rightly compare it to anything BUT Chaplin (who makes a different style of comedy film than the Marx Bros.) and the Stooges (who I cannot even stand).

The Stooges, I think, are an apt comparison as they were known for doing similar comedy routines . They had the similar style of the Marx Bros. They may have been inspired by the Marx Bros. I'm not that familiar with their origin, but to say that none of them have a filmic connection, I entirely disagree. They each took the same Vaudevillian formula and applied to feature length filmmaking. The Marx Bros. fall in between the two in terms of social and humor relevance. Whereas Chaplin took society to task for its foibles in an, sometimes funny, sometimes annoying way, the Marx Bros. didn't. At least, I didn't see anything subversive in their routine.

[Sabin]

It may be a "group" kind of film, but since I will never see it in such a manner, the point is moot.

This warrants a separate post. What the fuck, Wes? What the fuck?

I will never see it in such a manner...

I don't like it. I never will. Why continue to address it?

I have absorbed the film. There is no further need for exploration of the topic. I have announced its inferiority in relevance to my own preferences. I have done my job. Why are you still on this?

I think lumping the Marx Brothers, Chaplin, and the Three Stooges into the same category is the same as lumping 'Zoolander', 'Runaway Juror', and the Let's All Go to the Lobby preface. An exaggeration? Sure. But they're only similarity is that they're both old and rooted in comedy. That's it. Similarities end there. They had nothing else in common. They all had dicks and some were from similar lineage.

[Sabin]

Woody Allen's obsession seems to be validation. He needs to keep saying something meaningful or he slips into some sort of sociopathic coma. The man is a machine. He's made 35 film projects and a short in 'New York Stories'. At least half of his films are unworthy, but he's made at least six for the canon: 'Annie Hall', 'Manhattan', 'The Purple Rose of Cairo', 'Hannah and Her Sisters', 'Crimes and Misdemeanors', and 'Husbands and Wives'. And that's not including 'Sleeper', 'Love and Death', 'Stardust Memories', 'Broadway Danny Rose', 'Radio Days', 'Bullets over Broadway', 'Sweet and Lowdown', 'Match Point', and several other films of varying significant merit. 'Scoop' was one of the worst films I'd seen of its respective year and I chalk it up to a lifelong New Yorker entranced by London and leading lady and getting a film off the ground that hadn' t yet been fully realized. It's lousy.

As for the Marx Brothers, I've yet to watch them with an audience and yet to find that problematic because I find them hilarious. It's anarchic humor, comedy of the ultimate fringe counterculture: the borscht belt vaudevillians trouncing an unimaginative world around them.

I guess my problem was that it was humor for the sake of humor. There was virtually no plot.

I think you went into this film with expectations already set. A Marx Brothers film is not story-driven but simply a canvas for already established personas. To understand the brilliance of 'Duck Soup' is to laugh in the face of fascism, politics, and the establishment. This is not running rampant on a ship or a race track but through a country at war! You can't really do that today. Not the way they did. We poke fun. They hijack in a way that few films outside of 'Dr. Strangelove' really do.

You say "humor for the sake of humor" and I find myself immediately wanting to respond: ...AAAAND?!?

The fundamentals of sitcom writing and screwball comedy dictate that in an ideal program, dialogue and narrative should be paced to comedic perfection. A movie like 'Some Like It Hot' tackles gender roles very amusingly, but it's the way that every scene is hilarious and paced. The maracas in the scene where Jack Lemmon announces his engagement has direct rooting in vaudeville where the jokes needed to be timed so that they didn't overlap with the laughter. Without accompanying laughter (from an audience or just if you don't find it funny), it must seem pretty pithy and random. But it's not. It's incredible skillful writing.

When you say "Humor for the sake of humor", you are basically telling Woody to pick up the gun and fire because there is no order in the universe. "Not only that, but try getting a plumber on weekends."

[rain Bard]

And, actually, I love Annie Hall and Bullets Over Broadway, but some of his films after that, up to Match Point (definitely not comedic), were crap.

Indeed. And Scoop proved he hadn't gotten all the crap out of his system.

Wes, I don't know where you live, but if there's not a revival theatre or a film society near you, I wonder if there are any cinema-appreciation clubs you could join. If not, found one! I started a DVD-and-discussion group more than three years ago and it's still going strong. It takes up one Saturday of a month (watching a movie- woe is me!) and otherwise my effort is minimal. We haven't tried any Marx Brothers yet, but Chaplin's Modern Times was a big hit with the group.

[Damien]

You Groucho fans can listen to 209 epsiodes of the radio version of You Bet Your Life at
http://154.ca/otr/list.cgi?id=25.

It's frequently hilarious.

And one thing I learned from the program is that the "Italian" brother's name is pronounced Chick-o, not Cheek-o as it's almost always said.



Edited By Damien on 1205204126

[OscarGuy]

I did say that a lot of the comic phrases were good and there were great puns, but I didn't laugh out loud at all. Rarely even laughed internally. It may be a "group" kind of film, but since I will never see it in such a manner, the point is moot.

And, actually, I love Annie Hall and Bullets Over Broadway, but some of his films after that, up to Match Point (definitely not comedic), were crap.

[Mike Kelly]

Hey, Duck Soup stopped Woody Allen from committing suicide in Hannah and Her Sisters. Of course, you may not like Woody Allen comedies either.

From Tim Dirks Greatest Films web site:
Why the title Duck Soup? [Earlier in 1927, director Leo McCarey had made a two-reel Laurel and Hardy film with the same title - and he borrowed the title from there.] The film's title uses a familiar American phrase that means anything simple or easy, or alternately, a gullible sucker or pushover. Under the opening credits, four quacking ducks (the four Marx Brothers) are seen swimming and cooking in a kettle over a fire. Groucho reportedly provided the following recipe to explain the title: "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life."

On Groucho's sparring, one of his best sequences:

Firefly: Not that I care, but where is your husband?
Mrs. Teasdale: Why, he's dead.
Firefly: I'll bet he's just using that as an excuse.
Mrs. Teasdale: I was with him to the very end.
Firefly: Hmmph. No wonder he passed away.
Mrs. Teasdale: I held him in my arms and kissed him.
Firefly: Oh, I see. Then, it was murder. Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.
Mrs. Teasdale: He left me his entire fortune.
Firefly: Is that so? Can't you see what I'm trying to tell you? I love you.
Mrs. Teasdale: Oh, your Excellency!
Firefly: You're not so bad yourself.