I didn’t really get into The Marx Brothers until I was in college, growing up I was more into Abbott and Costello and The Bowery Boys, The Marxes were a little over my head in grade school. Having discovered the uniqueness of the brothers, I began watching as many of their films as I could, and by far their best is Duck Soup, which was the inevitable end of the progression they went through at Paramount. Having crashed high society and taken over a college university, where else to go but to take over a country.
The film is probably the greatest anti-war film ever made, instead of showing the horror of war in films like All Quiet on the Western Front, Duck Soup shows the absurdity of going to war. Grouchy sums it all up with a single sentence, “But we must go to war, I’ve already put a down payment on the battlefield!”
What plot there is deals with a sneaky diplomat from Groucho’s neighboring country trying to take over Groucho’s by devious means and employs Chico and Harpo to help him, only to have Groucho push for war, which he wins when Chico and Harpo join his side and and pelt the diplomat with apples. Around this bare bones plot is strung a series of skits that vary from slapstick to word play to musical comedy that runs rough shod over everything from government bureaucracy, legal trials, diplomacy, espionage, patriotism and combat.
Highlights for me include Groucho’s inauguration, where he openly admits he will run the country into the ground, Chico’s trial for being a spy where Groucho defends him against himself, Chico and Harpo’s ongoing war with Edgar Kennedy’s lemonade salesmen, Harpo’s Paul Revere inspired midnight ride, All God’s Children Got Guns dance number, and the climactic war where Groucho’s costume changes from scene to scene with different military uniforms.
But the true highlight is the Groucho/ Harpo mirror bit, a comedy routine that has been ripped off from sit-coms to cartoons. A simple bit where Harpo is disguised as Groucho and Groucho sees him in a doorway which Harpo pretends is a mirror and for the next five minutes mimics every move Groucho makes in a hilarious escalation of absurd and at times surreal comedy as Groucho, who knows he is looking at a fake, tries to get Harpo to make a mistake.
What makes this so funny is that all Groucho has to do is reach out and touch Harpo, but that is somehow not playing the game by the rules so after each setback we see Groucho think and then decide with a small nod, that yes, this will get him. The best moments are when Groucho does a spin and Harpo simply copies the finish of the spin since that is all Groucho will see, and the top hat. Here Groucho enters, walking sideways with a top hat behind his back, he and Harpo circle each other moving out aand then back into the doorfram in their original positions,during which Groucho notices Harpo has a straw hat and smirks at him, knowing he has finally got him, only to lose when they put their hats on and now Harpo has a top hat.
Watching the film it is easy to see why it was considered their worst film during it’s initial release,and why over the years, it’s timeless biting satire, has brought a reevaluation to being one of their best.
