Film Review: Duck Soup (1933)
Certain brands of comedy are acquired taste. That includes even those that made certain comedians icons of popular culture and whose works are hailed as classics. The author of this review encountered this phenomenon when watching Marx Brothers in their best known and most celebrated work - Duck Soup, 1933 film directed by Leo McCarey.
The plot is set in fictional country of Freedonia, which is beset by serious financial problems. Wealthy widow Mrs. Gloria Teasdale (played by Margaret Dumont) agrees to donate 20 million US$ but in exchange country leaders must be replaced with Rufus T. Firefly (played by Groucho Marx) with whom she is in love. In the meantime, neighbouring country of Sylvania wants to annex Freedonia and its ambassador Trentino (played by Louis Calhern) is fermenting revolution. When this fails because of Firefly’s popularity, he sends two spies – Chicolini (played by Chico Marx) and Pinky (played by Harpo Marx) – that ultimately manage to infiltrate Firefly’s cabinet and try to steal Freedonian war plans. When Firefly slaps Trentino, this is taken as an excuse for war in which Firefly, Chicolini and Pinky would ultimately defend Mrs. Teasdale’s home from advancing Sylvanian troops.
The plot of the film is rather thin and serves as nothing more than an excuse for series of irreverent gags that often don’t make much sense or connection with the rest of the fil. It takes a while for an average viewer to get accustomed to this approach and cause of Duck Soup isn’t helped with quality of humour varying with each scene. Couple of rather uninspiring music numbers by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby are also disappointing. Things slightly improve around half of running time with some gags that were later hailed as classics – exchange of three hats featuring Chicolini, Pinky and unfortunate lemonade vendor (played by Edgar Kennedy), which is slightly overlong; the other is mirror scene in Firefly’s residence, which was later copied in number of films and television shows. Both of those gags, however, weren’t exactly original and had their origin in vaudeville. The ending, which features surreal battle during which Firefly keeps changing uniform, is disappointing. Some of the talents are wasted – like Zeppo Marx in the role of Firefly’s secretary (who, following this film, wisely decided to end his acting career and dedicate himself to engineering) and Raquel Torres as Sylvanain vampish spy. What keeps this film together is strong direction by Leo McCarey who keeps rapid pace and with short running time, many of the film’s flaws aren’t that visible or irritable to viewers.
Duck Soup was and still is a misunderstood film. Its irreverence and anarchic humour wasn’t much appreciated by early 1930s audience, unlike 1960s when young rebellious generation found it much more to its liking and created cult of Duck Soup that lasts to this day. Film’s reputation was helped by Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini who apparently saw character of Trentino as satiric version of himself and, feeling insulted, had film banned in Italy, thus giving Duck Soup anti-fascist credentials that would help his cement its popularity among left-wing and progressive circles. Those same circles saw mocking of patriotism and militarism as satire against the forces that had led the world to slaughter in the Great War and would do it again. Marx Brothers, however, rejected all hidden political agenda and Groucho Marx, best known of the all the brothers, wasn’t exactly happy with the film. Director Leo McCarey shared the same sentiments many years later, and flaws of the Duck Soup are sometimes explained with trouble on the set, McCarey’s disagreements with Marx Brothers, while Marx Brothers had their own issues with Paramount Pictures. Contrary to popular belief, Duck Soup wasn’t a flop, but its box office results were somewhat disappointing, leading to Marx Brothers leaving Paramount Pictures for MGM, where newly enforced Hays Code and tight leash of studio executive Irving Thalberg would tame them and make their films more approachable.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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