Political Quack-Quack-Quackery, Marx Brothers-Style

Rating: 5/10 (24 November 2013)

Amidst plenty of musical pomp and fanfare - Duck Soup is yet another Marx Brothers' comedy whose brand of humor (which includes insults, wordplay, innuendo, and slapstick silliness) works to its best advantage only about half the time. The rest of the time Duck Soup has a tendency to leave the viewer somewhat puzzled, seriously scratching their head, and saying "WTF!?" far too often.
With the Marx Brothers' fairly predictable comic-formula set very much into place (yes, there were some pleasant surprises, too), I certainly found that this particular vehicle, showcasing their often outrageous shenanigans, to be noticeably weaker than Horse Feathers.
More than anything, I found Duck Soup's haphazard story to have a decidedly rushed feel to it. In fact, I was given the clear impression that they were simply making the whole thing up as they went along. (Well, hey, at least, that's the way that it appeared to me)
Even though this film's title seems to have nothing that directly links it with the story, it does add yet another cockeyed element to the overall absurdity of Duck Soup's wonky premise.
And, because this film is now 80 years old, it's quite important for the viewer to take that aspect into full consideration and be willing to cut Duck Soup some serious slack. Otherwise one is apt to find themselves becoming totally frustrated by the bizarre antics of the Marx Brothers, and, thus, miss out on getting some sort of enjoyment out of this wacky political satire from Depression era Hollywood.
As Duck Soup's story goes - The small, European-like state of Freedonia, being in serious financial ruin, is borrowing huge sums of money from the wealthy widow, Mrs. Teasdale in order to bail themselves out of debt.
Before agreeing to OK yet another $20 million loan, Mrs. Teasdale insists that the country's present ruler be replaced by wacko, Rufus T. Firefly.
Once Firefly takes over the throne anarchy soon prevails. To make matters worse, the neighboring state of Sylvania sends bumbling spies Chicolini and Pinky to Freedonia to intercept top-secret information, only to set even more chaos into motion.
Anyways - It's like I said at the beginning of this review - Give this sort of premise to the likes of the Marx Brothers and its intended humor works its comical charm about half the time.