Duck Soup

Duck Soup
Nov. 17, 1933
Paramount
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B+

I recently saw this in a crowd of all ages and they laughed uproariously, the kids included.  I've seen it so many times, I think more than Horse Feathers, that I can't rate it higher, but it is still a near-great musical comedy.  Once again, Kalmar & Ruby did the music, and they also wrote the screenplay.  (Sheekman and Perrin did additional dialogue.)  The musical numbers-- "His Excellency Is Due," "The Freedonian National Anthem," "These Are the Laws of My Administration," and of course the war medley-- are fantastic, and the dialogue is generally sharp.  Some of the corniest jokes ("Dollars, Taxes") and some of the cleverest ("I'll hold your seat till you get there.  After you get there, you're on your own") have been quoted for decades, probably not always by people who know the source.  (The line about shorter hours, starting with the lunch hour, has popped up a whole bunch of places.)

The weakest parts are probably those with Edgar Kennedy as the lemonade seller, although I do like the hat mix-up and the way that Chico tells Kennedy that he and Harpo are spies.  It's partly my bias against silent-movie-style humor, but on the other hand, I still delight in the Groucho & Harpo mirror scene.  It seems like they have more to do with each other than usual in this movie, especially with Harpo (who as in Horse Feathers plays a character named Pinky, I think because of his "red" hair) as Groucho's chauffeur, although the tattoo sequence is good, too.

That scene shows how censorship was enforced, but not strictly.  Harpo's doghouse would've been an outhouse, but they couldn't get away with that.  On the other hand, when Groucho wants to see a tattoo of his grandfather, it's pretty clear that Harpo is going to take down his trousers.  Also, later Harpo seems to be about to go to bed with a woman (and the "Wu-Hu!" sound effect from International House seems particularly appropriate to any Sims player), but instead beds down with, of course, a horse.

Oh, and there is a duck in this movie, a duck-shaped music box that Harpo sets off.  Duck Soup means "an easy task," which I guess running the country is for Groucho, and spying is for Harpo and Chico.  Everyone else in the movie, including Zeppo, seems to find their patience tried.  ("You must come over some time and try my patience.")

This is the movie where Groucho references the song "That's Why Darkies Were Born," whose title out of context sounds more racist than it is.  (The Paul Robeson version makes the irony of the lyrics clear.)  I suppose objections could be raised to "All God's Chillun Got Guns" in the war medley, but I take it as cheerful parody of both spirituals and the hypocritical reasons offered for wars fought for "faith."

I do have a problem with the scene where Harpo breaks into the apartment where the woman's about to take a bath.  Usually, when he's chasing women, it seems less menacing than this.  That said, the pay-off, with the woman's husband (the lemonade seller) finding Harpo in his bath is good.

In contrast, this is probably my favorite movie for the Groucho/Dumont relationship.  Yes, he still insults her, but he's actually kind of sweet to her at different points.  I wish that there had been a Marx Brothers movie with both Dumont and Todd, but Raquel Torres does a nice job as Vera Marcal.

Poor Zeppo is back to playing Groucho's secretary.  (Insert the dictator/dictation joke.)  He was happy to retire from acting after this movie, but his elder brothers were far from through.  Except at Paramount.  This movie did poorly at the box office, the Depression audiences looking for something more optimistic in this first year of FDR.  So it was over to MGM, where they'd listen to "genius" Irving Thalberg.  But that tale must wait till 1935....

As easy as duck soup.