The Brothers at their peak!

Rating: Null/10 (26 December 2002)

In viewing Duck Soup for the first time in several years, I was quite taken, not only by the Marx Brothers' work, but by the strides they and Hollywood in general, had made in a few short years. I had just been reading that all newspapers, maps, etc., that characters held in their first movie, The Coconuts, had to be sopping wet, so the crackling of paper didn't drown out the dialogue in the primitive microphones. From the early `talkies' days of 1929, the studios and the four brothers had come a long way by 1933.
The Marx Brothers, director Leo McCarey, and sound man Harry Lindgren showed that they had already mastered sound, in addition to the brothers' wonderful sight gags. I was completely taken in when Harpo (having been warned in a severe whisper by exotic sex kitten Raquel Torres not say a word, while spying downstairs at night, or face a firing squad), begins following the combination to what he assumes is a safe. It turns out to be a radio, loudly belting out John Phillips Sousa's `Stars and Stripes Forever,' to Harpo's horror  with the loudest and most dramatic portion coming after he has battered the radio to pieces! This is a delightful gag and Harpo manages not to telegraph it. Later, when Harpo is sent out as Paul Revere, McCarey again shows his grasp of the modern soundtrack. At first he gallops along to a dramatic cavalry charge tune (the name of which I cannot place). The tune slows, though, as Harpo's horse slows. The camera turns and we see a Thelma Todd look-alike (Who IS she, anyway? She is not mentioned in the extended cast.) undressing in the window. Suddenly `Ain't She Sweet?' replaces the galloping charge, as Harpo's attention is totally diverted (in keeping with his well-established character) from his patriotic duty.
Of course this is the Marx Brothers at their peak. Groucho's witticisms and paper-thin attempts at romantic sincerity in courting wealthy Gloria Teasdale (the great Margaret Dumont) are hilarious. `Will you marry me? Did you husband leave you any money? Answer the second question first!' Later, during the battle scene, he yells `We must defend this woman's honor-which is probably more than SHE ever did!' Also during the fight, he applies water to her face after she had been knocked out by a falling light fixture. `Hey, that's our only water!' Zeppo cries, nodding toward the pitcher. To which Groucho sagely points out that `This is our only WOMAN!' Of course his classic `I can see you leaning over a hot stove. Now I can't see the stove!' is pure Groucho. Zeppo is as solid as ever and Chico & Harpo their old boisterous selves. The `mirror' scene with Groucho and Harpo (disguised as Groucho) is one of the group's all-time highlights (which, of course, Harpo recreated with Lucille Ball years later).
The sting of the Hays Code was still in the future and the boys were allowed to run roughshod  and it worked. Unlike later fare, Duck Soup showed the Marxes at their zany, irreverent (i.e., the classic scene with Harpo, a girl & a horse, in bed, with the `shoes' of each neatly laid on the floor, by the bed) best. Could they have maintained their momentum, had censorship not been tightened? Who can say? At least we have a handful of truly inspired Marx Brothers films. This one is probably the best.