(96 mins.) Released 1929-05-23
Director: Robert Florey, Joseph Santley
Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx
comedy, musical
originally posted 18 Sep 2017 16:36
It's the Marx Brothers (including Zeppo, who could have been replaced by a floor lamp - with a dimmer switch) adapting their Broadway hit to film. Fortunately, it's NOT a backstage musical. Groucho is a hotel manager who's trying to sell some Florida real estate, especially to the wealthy Margaret Dumont. The wavishing Kay Fwancis, er, Francis is trying to steal Dumont's jewels, and enlists the hapless Harpo and Chico to assist. And there's another subplot of Dumont's daughter's romance with the hotel clerk who's striving to be an architect; they both have wonderful singing voices, of course, and she dances a bit (Marilyn Miller style).
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The zaniness includes the sextet of 3 Marx bros, a house detective, Francis and Dumont running around 2 adjoining hotel rooms, the Groucho/Chico dialogue including "vi-a-duct", and the auction where Chico can't stop bidding against himself, not to mention lots of great one-liners.
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Harpo plays clarinet briefly, and has a full solo on harp. Chico plays piano. We have 2 dance numbers where the camera is placed LOW, predating Orson Welles' "startling" technique in Citizen Kane (1941); the director must have been a "leg man." We also have high-angle shots, and one fully overhead, with the chorines making geometric shapes, predating Busby Berkeley (his first dance-director credit is more than a year away: Whoopee! (1930); IMDb reviewers mention overhead geometrics there.) Hard to believe that 5 of the 7 songs were written by Irving Berlin: they are utterly forgettable.
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I have great affection for the Marx Bros. My ratings system fails me here, because this is sufficiently archaic that I don't really recommend it, but I can watch it often and enjoy it each time.
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No extras on the dvd.
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Paramount, dir. Florey, Santley; 7-
