Take THAT, three-act paradigm!

Rating: 10/10 (18 March 2009)

This is the greatest film the Marx Brothers ever made, and the funniest sound comedy I ever expect to see, because it turns them loose full force against the institutions of government and war, exposing them to such apt and merciless ridicule that the movie actually appears to be ABOUT something. By denying us the usual musical hiatuses - violently; a piano lid actually crashes down on Harpo's fingers - they even throw culture itself on to the same rubbish heap, in the process building a head of momentum that is so powerful as to be positively disorienting. Nowhere else are the brothers' strengths deployed in such effective tandem, with Groucho's lecherous misanthropy clearing a channel for Harpo's horny berserkitude and Chico's forehead-smacking wordplay. Dumont is at her irreplaceable best too. And as if to prove exactly how unstoppable they are, they did it all under the watchful eye of a McCarthyite fink - who must nonetheless deserve some credit for making the thing look and move like an actual movie.