State of Marx Brothers DVDs

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by shepherdfan, Jun 21, 2006.

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  1. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    There's an interesting list of "incomplete or partially lost" films at this link on Wikipedia:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incomplete_or_partially_lost_films

    For the Marx Brothers, only Horse Feathers is listed, having lost a minute or two due to "censorship and film damage," according to the article. Anything else I think was cut at the time of release, so like any film, they shot a lot of additional material that didn't wind up in the final picture. There could well have been foreign or preview prints made that had extra scenes (or were missing other scenes).
     
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  2. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Huge fan of the Marx Bros here since I was a kid. Sadly there does not seem to be enough interest to drive any decent restoration past what we already have. Oddly Love Happy has come out on blu ray, perhaps because of the Marilyn Monroe connection.

    The recent release of the Marx Bros TV collection with the bonus more bits and pieces disc was nice to see happen, but I'm afraid the movies will be ignored. I got both sets dirt cheap so I got 2 of each.
     
  3. vinnie

    vinnie Senior Member

    Location:
    New Jersey
    found this online:
    http://www.marx-brothers.org/marxology/horse.htm
     
  4. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
  5. Sadly they've been forgotten or the average audience is ignorant of The Marx Brothers. Heck, I'm happy in someone in their 30's gets a Monty Python reference!
     
  6. Not to beat an old horse (sorry) but is it possible he conflated two different memories--having read about scenes that should be n there but aren't and viewing the film? I've never seen a completed version. Ever. Even the UCLA archive didn't have one.
     
  7. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    At least for people of my generation (mid-40s), we'd come home from school to find Three Stooges shorts showing, and sometimes there would be Laurel and Hardy. During the summer months, the local channel always had a movie that ran in mid-afternoon, and I watched a lot of older material then, including the Marx Brothers. I can't imagine people having the exposure we did, especially when they had dozens, if not hundreds, of channels available and the quality of the new material was pretty good.

    I can see the classic comedy groups being all but forgotten in the next few decades.
     
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  8. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    I'm waiting for them to release a version of A Night At The Opera with four more hard boiled (Easter) eggs :cool:
     
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  9. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    Looking forwards to catching a live stage production of Animal Crackers this summer

    http://www.broadwayworld.com/articl...TIONAL-PASTIME-Full-Season-Announced-20150209

    About 20 years ago I saw The Cocoanuts produced Off Broadway, with the addition of the excised tune Always and a "Groucho" who did new adlibs nightly as the original had done in the Broadway version. It blew away the film. Hope this one is as well done as that.
     
  10. dirwuf

    dirwuf Misplaced Chicagoan

    Location:
    Fairfield, CT
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  11. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
    I hadn't read a Marx Book in a long time. This one looks pretty fun. Ironically, after many years I am in the middle of Harpo Speaks. Any Marx fans should know this is a delightful book an one of the very best on the Boys.
     
  12. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    Harpo Speaks isn't just a great book about the Marx Bros, it is a great book. One of the two best memoirs I have read, second only to Bound for Glory.
     
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  13. Scope J

    Scope J Senior Member

    Location:
    Michigan
    Wildly off-topic , but
    i just picked up Harpo's
    albums , 2 on 1 cd
     
  14. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I know a lot of folks bag on Love Happy, but recently after a few viewings of the blu ray I'm "happy" to have it in my collection.
     
  15. davenav

    davenav High Plains Grifter

    Location:
    Louisville, KY USA
    Some of the described missing footage rings a bell. I saw this film in college in the seventies, and I seem to remember some of those bits, especially the parts with Harpo & Thelma Todd and Groucho returning for his rubbers.

    I don't recall seeing the school burning, but every time I've seen Horsefeathers since, I've winced at the choppy editing of the scene in the college widows apartment, and thought that it didn't correlate with my memories from that screening.

    BTW - I nominate Horsefeathers re-release as the worst editing ever from a major studio.

    The Marx Brothers need the kind of attentive restoration that other landmark comedy acts have enjoyed in the blu-ray era.
     
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  16. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I'll second that and toss WC Fields in too.

    I can only hope and dream to see all the Marx Brothers and WC Fields movies on some astounding blu ray or better format meticulously restored like some other bigger name movies have been, but sadly I doubt it.

    Some day though, mark my words there will be a resurgence of interest in these best of classic comedy movies from the Marx Brothers and WC Fields and it will be glorious. I just wish I could be there to see it. Kind of like rediscovering Jimi Hendrix a century from now.
     
  17. dirwuf

    dirwuf Misplaced Chicagoan

    Location:
    Fairfield, CT
    The "fire" ending of Horse Feathers was cut before the film was released, it has never been seen..
     
  18. MarkTheShark

    MarkTheShark Senior Member

    It still seems a little jarring to me when an acquaintance will talk about a film being a "comedy classic," and they're talking about some Adam Sandler movie.
     
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  19. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Wow. Love to see that!

    Glad he didn't. I was always disappointed he didn't stick with the fake one in Love Happy.
     
  20. dance_hall_keeper

    dance_hall_keeper Forum Resident

    [​IMG]
    I was just thinking about Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush.
     
  21. dirwuf

    dirwuf Misplaced Chicagoan

    Location:
    Fairfield, CT
    They were for Captain Spaulding, not Hackenbush..
     
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  22. bumbletort

    bumbletort Senior Member

    Location:
    Baltimore, Md, USA
    Not for the Hack-in-the-bush??
     
  23. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Maybe once Criterion gets done with Chaplin and Lloyd they can move on to the Marx Brothers and Fields. Both have been in the Criterion catalog in the past (Marx Brothers in the Laserdisc era and Fields had two early Criterion DVD releases).
     
  24. antoniod

    antoniod Forum Resident

    As far back as the Allen Eyles book on the Marx Bros. published in the 60s in Britain(and the US), it was pointed out that "The print circulated by MCA-TV(of HORSEFEATHERS) is incomplete". There must be some other "Code-cuts" that are just as bad as Horsefeathers. Actually, MGMs cuts in NIGHT AT THE OPERA look worse. How many other circulating versions of major films(or any films)open with a crude jump cut where there should be a fade-in? The Wartime reissue of DeMille's SIGN OF THE CROSS had a jarring cut where Joyzelle's "Naked Moon" dance was supposed to be. (COCONUTS and ANIMAL CRACKERS have crude cuts in them as well, but I wonder if early talkies really count).
     
  25. dirwuf

    dirwuf Misplaced Chicagoan

    Location:
    Fairfield, CT
    Believe me, studios and film archivists have searched the world for complete/better prints of the Marx films, and outside of a rumored print of
    "A Night at the Opera" in the Hungarian Archive, nothing has shown up. So Criterion is out of luck...

    By the way, Amazon Instant Video and the iTunes Store now have HD versions of "Duck Soup", "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races", and they all look spectacular.
     
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