Ducky farce about 2 neighboring small countries

Rating: 10/10 (25 December 2016)

For non-stop chaos and hilarity, this Marx Brothers film is hard to beat. Frequently, the screenplay makes little sense, as expected in a Marx comedy. Groucho is especially prominent, doing a little singing and dancing to complement his usual insulting remarks and puns and flirtations. Margaret Dumont has an unusual amount of screen time, this being one of 7 of their films she was in, usually playing a wealthy widow society matron whom Groucho alternatively insults and flirts with. Here, she even gets to demonstrate her opera-trained singing voice. She plays the chief financier of the small country of Fredonia. Thus, she gets to name the new prime minister in the form of Groucho(Firefly), who takes full advantage of his position to do his usual stick. Chico and Harpo also contribute their brands of zaniness, sometimes together, sometimes separately, sometimes with Groucho. In a particularly memorable segment, Chico or Harpo or both are street vendors, selling peanuts. They have a hilarious time fighting with Edgar Kennedy, as the lemonade vendor next door. Sometimes the pair are working for Groucho; sometimes they are employed as spies for the neighboring country of Sylvania. Harpo is Groucho's trickster motorcycle driver. Chico is sometimes Groucho's war minister. Louis Calhern plays the scheming ambassador for Sylvania: the defacto villain. There is the memorable mirror mimicry scene, which provides perhaps 5 min. of silence, while Groucho and Harpo mimic each other's movements on either side of an empty mirror frame, Harpo being made up like Groucho. Chico then arrives, also made up like Groucho. The basic idea had been done in film a few times before, and would be done by others in the future. I'm personally familiar with instances by Bob Hope, Don O'Connor, and even Errol Flynn.
In the music department, early on, Zeppo and Margaret Dumont sing "His Excellency is Due", then Groucho and Margaret sing "These are the Laws of my Administration". Later, the brothers sing "The Country is Going to War". All these were composed by the team of Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, who were honored in the 1950 film "Three Little Words".
This was the last film the brothers did for Paramount, as well as being tied with "Horse Feathers" for the shorted length, at only 68 min.. One of the obvious differences in the structure of the coming MGM films with the Paramount films, is the inclusion of a young romantic couple, who do some of the singing. and usually have some problem interfering with their ability to get married, which the brothers help to solve. Zeppo would also be totally absent from future films. His presence in the Paramount films, including this one, was always tenuous, anyway.