Harry Ruby (1895–1974)

I don't get the appeal of the Marx Brothers. If I were contemporary to that era I'd be a crank complaining about how the talkies ruined film comedy. The silent greats like Keaton & Chaplin created complex Rube Goldberg gags where the visual punchline was funny in an of itself, but there was also tremendous satisfaction in all the different moving parts, the twists and turns, leading inexorably to it. This is just a string of one-liners, or not even a string -- a random sequence only very show more loosely bound by the thinnest of plots. show less

A film starring the Marx Brothers (Paramount, 1933).

Groucho is put in charge of a country.

B (Good).

It's hilarious, up until it keeps going for 10 or 15 minutes after it should have ended.

(Jan. 2023)

It was the team's least popular 1930s film, perhaps because the tone of non-stop anarchy proved too unsettling to Depression audiences. Its relentless pot shots at war, religion and just about everything else. making it sheer controlled chaos and sheer silliness, which has never been more inspired. The Marx brothers on top form with their quickfire comedy and banter. A masterpiece. The best, and funniest, depiction of the absurdities of war ever committed to celluloid. In place of the show more constant punning and dame chasing, Duck Soup has the Marxes madcapping through such bits as the old Schwartz Bros. mirror routine, so well done in the hands of Groucho, Harpo and Chico that it gathers a new and hilarious comedy momentum all over again. A strong director—Leo McCarey -- had the flexibility to give the boys their head and the discipline to make some formal sense of it. No romantic subplot, no musical interludes with Harpo, no distractions from the fun of watching Groucho deflate Margaret Dumont as he becomes dictator of Fredonia and frivolously declares war. show less