New Groucho Marx book

My first Marx Brothers book was Why a Duck, but Anobile had a falling out with Groucho, didn't he?

 

Love Harpo Speaks myself. Best auto bio I have read (and I have read it many times) other than Bound For Glory.

Particularly like the Childhood parts and the parts about the Algonquin, Island, Croquet, etc.

 

It is spoiler heavy and comes kind of close to ruining the movies if you read it first.

 

I actually discovered the Marx Brothers as a kid reading "Why A Duck" . It didn't spoil the movies. Instead it made me seek them out.

 

I got it around 2nd grade myself, a year after gettingninto Chaplin, and it got me to seek the films out too. Spoil is too strong a word, but I think I would have enjoyed them more if I knew less of the punch lines in advance.

 

Not the biggest fan of the movies, but I loved "You Bet Your Life". Groucho was great on that.

 

I was in Junior HS when I read "Why A Duck". I had a friend who (these days) would be diagnosed as autistic. He knew every fact from every movie ever done. We would bring the TV Guide to school, find a movie, and Richie would list the cast, director,producer, etc. He had the "Duck" book. After reading it, I watched the TV Guide movie section for a mention of the Marx Brothers. First one..."The Story of Mankind" which had them in cameo. One of the worst movies ever made. And I stayed up, in those pre-VHS days, till 2 AM just to see Harpo get hit in head with an apple (as Isaac Newton). Fortunately, it wasn't long after that that I got to see AC, Monkey Bus, Horsefeathers, Duck Soup, and Coconuts at a film festival at Temple University.

Post script on Richie G...he decided to memorize the flip side of every 45 ever made. I think he succeeded.

 

Still haven't seen that one, though have seen their contributions.

 

If you are referring to The Story of Mankind...It is one of the worst movies in the history of cinema.

 

I guess I caught a break!

 

The best moments from YBYL are as funny to me as the classic films.

I can't watch this clip without my guts hurting by the end.

 

Wasn't the falling out with Anobile over the Marx Brothers; Scrapbook, in which Groucho came across as somewhat grumpy (if funny) and some of his choice of vocabulary, less than polite? I thought I read that Groucho was annoyed at Anobile for quoting things he'd said in confidence.

 

Me, too.

 

thanks for the tip!

 

That's the accepted story, but not true at all...it was Erin Fleming who didn't like it and spearheaded the lawsuit. Anobile finally tells his side of the story in the upcoming "That's Me, Groucho" book mentioned up thread.

 

I can barely remember it but the paperback edition of The Marx Brothers' Scrapbook had a long forward about all the trouble the author had dealing with Groucho. The book started out as a labour of love but ended painfully for everyone involved.

 

I had this one when I was a kid and LOVED it.

Why A Duck? By Richard J.(editor) Anobile - Used Books - Hardcover - 1971 - from The Book Escape and Biblio.com »

 

I had that one as well, good read.

Apropos of nothing, my older brother was a dead ringer for Groucho, and I would often get pulled in to play Harpo or Chico.

 

For what it's worth, Chico's daughter Maxine makes reference to The Marx Brothers Scrapbook in her book Growing Up with Chico. She says she was upset because of some comments Groucho had made about Chico in the Scrapbook, and she confronted Groucho about it. She says he referred to it as "that damn book" and told her that he'd intended those comments to be off-the-record. So I don't know that it's accurate to say that the controversy was all Fleming. At minimum, it appears to be a situation where Groucho made some comments and later regretted them.

 

All I can say is that Anobile tells a different story, and that if Groucho was unhappy with the book, he never expressed it to Anobile, and Erin was the one who decided to make an issue of it...

 

It could well be that Groucho was not unhappy with the book until he started getting blowback from friends and family like Maxine. Or that in his comments to Maxine he was deliberately shifting blame onto Anobile.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on this.

Best Wishes,
David

 

Here's another good one, full of great pictures:

 

Interesting that there is a revival of the Marx's first Broadway musical (and only one never made into a film): I'll Say She Is

At the Connelly Theater in NYC through July 2

 

You need to find the documentary filmed in the 80's when there was still one survivor. It won an Oscar, and it's funny as hell sometimes.