Copacabana
Happily, Groucho is still Groucho in his first post-Marx brothers movie,  and that's enough to keep this showbiz farce going. The rather labored plot has  Groucho getting his longtime fiancée, Carmen Miranda, booked at Manhattan's  glamorous Copacabana club, but as two different performers: a Brazilian  bombshell (the usual Carmen Miranda act, without the pineapple on the head) and  a veiled French chanteuse called Mademoiselle Fifi. Some of the nightclub stuff  has a retro appeal, and the appearance of real-life showbiz columnists (like  Earl Wilson) brings a whiff ofSweet Smell of Success. But mostly there's  Groucho, still flinging one-liners in a zone of his own. Even when the material  isn't first-rate, his delivery never wavers from the withering skepticism of the  Marx brothers' early days. The old greasepaint mustache comes out for one  typically Marxist number, with the remainder of the songs handled by Miranda and  wet-eyed crooner Andy Russell.--Robert Horton