(111 min) Released 1937-06-11
Director: Sam Wood
Stars: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Allan Jones, Maureen O'Sullivan, Margaret Dumont, Douglass Dumbrille, Sig Ruman
Dave Gould ... musical numbers staged by; Oscar nom for "All God's Children Got Rhythm". Oscar 1938
Genres: Comedy | Musical | Sport
This is the 7th of 11 MB films, the second at MGM. (A Night at the Opera was 2 years ago.) Someone on IMDb actually titled their review "The Last Great Marx Brothers Movie." My sentiments exactly. The rest are mostly good, but only 6's and 7's. This was the last one with Irving Thalberg's guidance; released in June. Thalberg had died Sept '36.
Iconic comedy and musical numbers:
- Scene 6: Tootsie-frootsie ice cream (the Groucho-Chico negotiation over racetrack tip books)
- Scene 11: On Blue Venetian Waters sung by AJ, lots of dancing by ensemble and ballerina Vivien Fay on beautiful set with 3 footbridges (where did they find/setup those vertical fountains?)
- Scene 12: dancing spree (GM switches partners between MD and the other woman)
- Scene 13: piano by Chico
- Scene 14: harp (supposedly piano innards) by Harpo
- Scene 17: wallpapering the other woman
- Scene 19: examining the patient (MD) in a barber chair, 3 MB exiting on the horse
- Scene 20: Tomorrow Is Another Day sung by AJ to MS in barn, leads to:
- Scene 21: Gabriel Blow that Horn (Harpo playing recorder, piping local chillun), leads to:
- Scene 22 of 27: All God's Chillun Got Rhythm sung by Ivie Anderson, with great jitterbug dancing
We saw Ivie briefly with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in The Hit Parade (1937), about 4 films ago. She gets much better face time here. We have a lot of black actors/singers (The Crinoline Choir, and according to the commentary, some members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra) employed here, but they're shown living in dilapidated shacks, wearing ragged clothes, sporting exaggerated facial expressions, and using under-educated language. But at least they're getting paid instead of blacked-face whites. If certain theatres wanted to excise them, they'd have to cut scenes 20-22 and 27. I wonder if some did.
Although we have 5 more scenes after the big 3-scene production number, the pace is very good at the end. The craziness of the horse race topped by the musical victory strut is terrific.
Inventory: Groucho & Chico negotiate; Chico and Harpo have piano and harp solos respectively. (Duck Soup is the only place we didn't get musical solos from CM and HM.)
So why not a 9? It's a little long, mostly in the first half.
