Welp...

...one film away from 50!

Part of the ongoing series (nearly daily, no?) about the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition).

Comedy time.

Film 49

49.  "Duck Soup" (AFI Rank #60)

The last nine films I've watched ("The Sound of Music," "Modern Times," "The Searchers," "Cabaret," "Intolerance," "The Best Years of Our Lives," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Wizard of Oz," and "Goodfellas") in this quest have been marvels of the visual power of film as an art form.  They expressed things that only film could convey, and they leave us dumbstruck.  The soul of those films could not be expressed any other way.

"Duck Soup" would hardly be classified as a visual feast.  Yet, it is, most assuredly, a piece of art that could only be done on film.  Filled with grand musical numbers, classic sketches, and the unrelenting rapid fire delivery of the "actors," this film seems like it could maybe take place on a stage.  Except it totally couldn't.  Because what helps make this great, I have no doubt, is one thing that is unique to the recorded arts - the ability to cut, use multiple angles, or shoot another take.  Now, I'm not saying that the Marx Brothers couldn't have delivered every moment of this live.  No.  They probably could have.  No, what I'm saying is that this thing is so tight, so well crafted, so exquisitely timed, that it just wouldn't work elsewhere.  And you know what all that makes it?

A great film.

Yes.  It is a great film.  It's not just a great comedy.  It's a great film.

I got my snob out a little bit when I was perusing the Top 100, and I noticed not one, but TWO Marx Brothers films on the list.  I still am not certain, given only 100 to choose from, that I'd pick two films, but now that I'm nearly half way into this, and watching really nothing but great film after great film, I realize that great film is lots of different things.  So.  I stand by my assertion that a film like "Halloween" probably belongs on the list instead of having to have two Marx Brothers films, but I understand why they are here.  And for the record, this is the Marx Brothers film I'd have chosen.

So.  I've grown.

On with the film.

Directed by Leo McCarey, the framework of "Duck Soup" is a story set in the land of Freedonia, bankrupt, and having borrowed a substantial sum of money from its wealthiest citizen, the widow Mrs. Teasdale (Maragret Dumont).  In exchange for more money, Freedonia agrees to install Teasdale favorite Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) as its new leader.   I said "framework" when discussing the plot, because the plot is really tertiary to what happens in "Duck Soup."  It's a premise around which three geniuses (and one other brother, whose genius was better spent another way) get to romp about, making us laugh any way they can.

Cutting their teeth in vaudeville, the Marx Brothers were an overwhelming force of comedy, combining wit, physical prowess, and well, just plain silliness.  All of those aspects of their talents appear in this film, and they appear in droves.  Beginning with the lavish open to the film, complete with a rapid fire song performed by Groucho and a cast of dozens, this film grabs you and doesn't let you breathe.  Constantly making you think, making you say to yourself, "wait, what did he just say?"  Groucho just takes over any scene in which he appears.  Except when Chico appears.  Or Harpo.  Groucho's the smart one, but Chico's patter is no less rapid fire, if more common, and Harpo is in constant motion, as the mute clown.  It's classic comedy archetype, and these guys play it to the hilt.

Included in all the antics are two exceptional, all time classic physical comedy sequences:  the mirror bit and the hat exchange bit.  I'm just going to say that having seen this film a few times prior, and watching it again...awestruck.  Just awestruck.  The mirror gag is the obvious one, but the hat bit...damn.  Just damn.  I also am the guy who thinks "Make 'Em Laugh" is the best dance sequence in "Singin' in the Rain."   I've got a particular fetish for the lesser known bits, while being, at times, decidedly populist.  If you don't know these sequences, watch this film.  Laugh.  Repeat as necessary.

I put the word "actors" in quotes above.  Yes, comedy is acting.  However, is it the commitment to the character that makes the gags work in this film, or is it the commitment to the gag that makes the character?  I tend towards the latter.  That's why I put the word in quotation marks.  In all of this madness, we see some other actors playing straight man.  Zeppo, the most handsome, and most sacrificing of the brothers, is the straight man in a great deal of this.  As is Magaret Dumont as Mrs. Teasdale.  As is, well, everybody not named Chico, Harpo, or Groucho.  It is their dedication to character that makes the clowns so goddamned funny.  Throw in the alluring Raquel Torres and the wonderfully stiff Louis Calhern, and you've got some great dartboards.  I do need to mention one straight man who actually is a major portion of the hat bit I reference above.  Edgar Kennedy, as the Lemonade vendor, is spot on in this.  Spot on.  His timing is impeccable, his reactions are just what Chico and Harpo need, and...well...damn.

Let's talk about my thoughts on the three clowns.  Groucho is...well...he's unrelenting, as I mentioned above.  Trying to keep up with his barbs, as they continue to pummel us, one after the other, is a task.  It's daunting, it's a great deal of fun...and at times...it's a little much.  And that is the point.   Chico's gift for building empathy is on display in full force here.  His piano bit in "A Night at the Opera" is a sign of this, and his skills of connection to the common, while being exceptional, are a welcome respite from Groucho's constant condescension.  Then, there's Harpo.  I found, on this viewing, to really not like Harpo's Pinky.  He's mean.  He doesn't know any better, but he's mean. He's constantly harming other people's property, be it setting a hat or two on fire, or constantly cutting away people's clothing with scissors, Pinky is a destructive force.  And we laugh.  Despite the fact that we really probably shouldn't.

I should note one other bit.  As Freedonia is approaching battle with neighboring nation Sylvania, we see Harpo take on the role of Paul Revere, riding through the night to call the Freedonians to war.  He is beckoned upstairs by a comely lass, and he and his horse enter the house.  We are then shown three sets of shoes, obviously next to a bed.  One is a woman's, one a man's, and two pairs of...horseshoes.  We then see Harpo sharing a bed with the horse, while the woman is in another bed.  As Hollywood hadn't gotten around to acknowledging that men and women do sleep in the same bed...well...yup.  The woman took on Harpo...and the horse.  Or Harpo took on the woman and the horse.  Or the horse took on the woman and Harpo.  Anyway you shuffle the deck, the joke is that the horse had some sex with some people.  Now THAT is some ballsy comedy.

The film's final sequences, during the war, is shown cleverly to be marking time through the constant costume changes of Rufus T. Firefly.  It's a great bit, and it's a very, very smart way to show us that the events unfolding before us aren't taking place in the 8 minutes or so of film.  That's filmmaking.

And there.  It's a great film.  Truly great.  Watch it, or watch it again, if for nothing else, the sheer grandiosity of it.  You deserve a laugh.  Go get some.

Ebert and I are on the same page again.  I promise you, gentle reader, that I have not read these essays before I write mine.  I really haven't.  Again, he's more eloquent than me, but he talks about the hat bit like I do.  Here's Roger.