Beyond Surreal.

Rating: 8/10 (13 June 2010)

One qualification: You have to be in a receptive mood to enjoy this otherwise it seems flat and silly, just a reflection of your sagging mood.
It may be their funniest movie, at least in the sense that it's hard, or impossible, to beat some of their gags. I'll give two examples, one verbal and one non-verbal.
(1) The peanut/lemonade stand scene with Edgar Kennedy, especially the mix up over who belongs to the three hats. It's out of Laurel and Hardy, true, but more quickly paced, fits in better with the general sense of nonsense, and Edgar Kennedy's exasperation is superbly projected. The director, Leo McCarey, had also directed Laurel and Hardy and there may have been some cross-fertilization.
(2) Chico is being tried in court and is threatened with "ten years in Leavenworth. And if that doesn't woik, we'll give you eleven years in Twelveworth." Chico: "I'll take five and ten in Woolworth!" (Kids, Woolworth's was a popular department store at the time, belonging to a genre called the five-and-ten-cent store.) I was in a meeting of the staff of a geriatric center in Philadelphia some years ago when someone commented on a suggestion, that it would "get you ten years in Leavenworth." I hastily added the rest of the sequence. Everyone looked at me, and no one laughed. The moral lesson here is that humor depends a great deal on context.
The context of "Duck Soup" is post-World War I in Europe and America, the Great Depression, the rise of National Socialism, and the impact of the Lost Generation on Western life. The First World War was begun by the assassination of an Archduke. National pride piled upon ethnic pride led to one of the most mismanaged and pointless wars of the century, an exercise in absurdity.
I doubt the Marx brothers were concerned about sending a message, but in retrospect that's exactly what they did. It's like one of those humorous birthday cards that make a joke out of growing older.