Is It Worth the Watch?

A rainy afternoon means it’s classic movie time. Today it was the Marx Brothers starring in 1933’s zany and biting Duck Soup. Many people consider this to be the brilliant comedy team’s finest film, and I certainly laughed out-loud heartily and consistently throughout its brief running time. 

Groucho plays Rufus T. Firefly, the newly appointed leader of a fictitious country, Freedonia, on the brink of war. Zeppo (in his final film with his brothers) plays his exasperated secretary, and Harpo and Chico are inept spies from the rival country.

Some of the team’s funniest comedy routines are here: the famous mirror scene, where Harpo and Groucho, dressed exactly alike, mimic each other in a missing mirror; the systematically destroyed lemonade stand, featuring always reliable character actor Edgar Kennedy; the radio scene, when Harpo, thinking he is clandestinely spinning a dial to crack a safe, turns on a very loud radio he then can’t turn off. The final battle sequence is an unforgettable masterpiece of comic satire, riotously funny while mocking xenophobia, nationalism, racism, and war mongering.

I hadn’t seen Duck Soup in several years, but I found it as I remembered it, a brilliant, hilarious, indelible film treasure.

Is It Worth The Watch? Some classics are classic for a reason. This one is hilariously and unrelentingly funny, and, unfortunately, still remarkably relevant as anti-war satire.

1933

68 minutes

Starring – Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern, Raquel Torres, Edgar Kennedy

Director – Leo McCarey

Screenplay – Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Arthur Sheekman, Nat Perrin

Songs –  Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby