Mirrors

Rating: Null/10 (1 January 2005)

My earlier comment was deleted based on a complaint, presumably because it focused on the very effective antiwar message of the movie. But you can see that for yourself, so with this try let's focus on one of the two inserted comedic bits. The movie is constructed in two parts with these comedic skits tossed in. The first part is a by then conventional Marx Brothers outline written by others: a rich Dumont, a scheme, a house and theft. Songs. The other half is what they used to call madcap: the battle where all sorts of nonsensical and off- hand jokes could be pulled.
By this time, the guys were already far from their Vaudeville heritage. I think their very best movies were the early ones, made in New York and based on already polished routines.
But they went back to their roots in the two inserted pieces. One is a routine between two street vendors: Chico as an Italian selling peanuts and an Irish Galoot selling lemonade. It is adopted from a familiar skit and is priceless.
Much more cinematic is the mirror bit. I consider this the high point in Marx humor, even though Chaplin invented the gimmick earlier. If you don't know it: all three of the performing brothers are made up like Groucho (who himself is made up). Two of them and later the third, mirror each other in a doorway which used to have a mirror.
There is a lead, trying to trick the other into revealing that he is not a reflection. The delicacy of how this develops is what makes it a masterpiece. There's some simple strutting and fake outs. But when they get to the hats what they do becomes very clever indeed. It hearkens back to the vendor hatswitching but engages the audience in a way only possible in cinema.
One comes out with a white hat behind his back and the other with a black which we see but his reflection doesn't. When the lead rushes to put on his white hat, his reflection miraculously has a white hat too and he points to the lead as if he were us. Its possibly the cleverest comic fold in film history.
Later, of course, they start to reach across into each other's space. Good performers, especially good comics understand this notion of comic space and the problems of how to get the audience into it.
If only illness hadn't messed up this act. The best comedy comes from the amount of actor's tears before the performance; the best tragedy comes from the fewest.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.