Marx Brothers: Paramounts or MGM?

But tastes had definitely changed by the end of the '30s and the quality of virtually all of the films by the great comedians of the time had declined.
I don' t think that Thalberg's presence would have changed things all that much. They would have followed the same formula he insisted on and the comedy would still have become more subdued and diluted. Their earlier, anarchic style was simply not in vogue. By the time the Marxes were making the final MGM films, Some critics said their earlier Paramount films seemed like they were relics of a different age!

 

So timeless comedy routines were “relics” by the late 30? I do not buy this at all.

 

I'm just repeating what some contemporary critics said at the time. This was 80 years ago, opinions and tastes change.

 

And you're right to do so. The Marxes did go out of fashion, as era-defining acts tend to do, albeit temporarily. Hence the big Marx Brothers revival in the late 60s and 70s on campuses.

 

When the Marx Brothers were at Paramount in the early 30s, there was a vogue for absurdist comedy in films like MILLION DOLLAR LEGS, DIPLOMANIACS, SO THIS IS AFRICA, MEET THE BARON, HOLLYWOOD PARTY, and a few others. After 1934, besides the code, Studios were probably concerned with what would or wouldn't go over in small towns. Exhibitors started referring derisively to "Wisecracks". You still got some bizarre humor in shorts after that(like Clark and McCullough), but not in features.

 

Paramount. No contest.

 

Has anyone ever taken the earlier MGM films and cut out the romance/leads singing "stripping" them to be all-Marx Bros?

Classics, but how many times can I take those "romantic breaks" in A Night at the Opera and the others?

Some of my favorite Marx scenes are in A Day at the Races and I do some skipping (but not of Harpo leading the young black children in song and dance, despite its now-offensive imagery).

I'd love to see a fan-cut of something like this. Does it exist?

Jeff

 

I often skip ahead in the MGM features.

At the Circus is a good one to hit the chapter advance button. Groucho and Chico interrogating the little man in the railroad cabin remains one of the funniest scenes in all of Marxism. No need to watch a sappy outdated love song to get to it.

 

Did they go out of fashion because the public grew tired of that type of comedy, or did they go out of fashion because the movies themselves got less funny and original (particularly post Day At The Races)? I wonder.

 

Or because the Marxes themselves just weren't as funny as they got older? I'm not saying they were completely dried-up has-beens or anything, but that unaired TV pilot they filmed where they played angels (can't remember the name), and some of their other TV appearances, just lacked energy and that magical spark. So if they looked old and dried up to the audiences at the time, people might perceive their comedy as being that way, especially at a time when they couldn't watch them whenever they felt like it. Theatre owners might assume their comedy wouldn't sell so they wouldn't screen any of their films, so the public might be led to believe that their comedy is dated even without having seen it.

Just speculation of course. I wasn't there.

 

I'd say both. Popular art invariably fades in popularity, even if the quality is sustained. And the Marxes did not sustain the quality.

 

Deputy Seraph outtakes.

 

what I still find ironic, they were all in their 40's before they made their first film in
1929. they were basically heading into retirement by this point so it's amazing we
got what we got! apparently the vaudeville days were the best, a pity we will never get
to experience that, I bet they were a real hoot to see live in the early 1900's.

 

Well, Groucho was 39 and Zeppo was 28. But yeah, point taken. Most comedians do their best work in their 20s and 30s, and we have nothing from this era of their careers.

 

Did the Marx Bros. write any of their material? All of those absurdist gags and great one-liners, did they originate with the brothers or did it all come from writers?

 

ahh yes, I forgot to think about Zeppo, of course! I was mainly thinking of the iconic 3.
I stand corrected, and yeah, wouldn't it be amazing if out of the blue, a lost film was found
of their vaudevillian days.....wishful thinking I know haha.

 

Well, if there was footage of the vaudeville days it would be silent, so it wouldn't be that exciting. Sound film was just starting to get some traction in the waning days of I'll Say She Is, so the most realistic fantasy I guess would be that someone with an early sound camera somehow managed to film part of a performance of that. But the likelihood of such a thing happening and not ever surfacing until almost 100 years later is beyond miniscule. I guess we're lucky for what we do have. Imagine if the Brothers were ten years older... they wouldn't have started making movies until they were completely past their prime.

 

this would be really something if it came to light:
Humor Risk - Wikipedia

 

A scene from ‘I’ll Say She Is’.

 

Not a bad theory, but their return to form in "A Night in Casablanca" (not a classic, but a very enjoyable film...by far the best thing they did after "Races") proves that they could still deliver the goods when given the right material.

 

In 1974-75, KOIN 6 in Portland put together a nightly show called "The Funny People" which was an hour long program featuring the great movie comics. They showed edited versions of movies, cut down to around 50 minutes to include commercials. They showed all the Marx Paramount & MGM films in edited form. The MGM films had all the musical numbers cut. The Paramount films were generally shorter so they didn't lose as much, but they still had to cut some funny stuff from most of the movies to fit into the 50 minutes. "A Day At The Races" was shown in two parts, since it was by far, the longest Marx Bros . film.

 

I recently saw the pre-code "Meet The Baron" & "Hollywood Party" for the first time in years, and I was nearly shocked that some of that got by the censors of the day. There was some pretty risqué stuff there!
Re: "Diplomaniacs", can somebody explain why Wheeler & Woolsey are all but forgotten today? Those guys were hilarious, way ahead of their time, in my opinion. They need to be rediscovered the way Lloyd, Keaton and the Marxes were in the '70s!

 

Chico had a pretty rapid decline in health starting in the 1950's. Harpo and Groucho stayed pretty sharp and funny tho during his last couple of years Groucho was on and off. The solo Groucho movies immediately after the brother broke up, like Copacabana and Double Dynamite, did not take good advantage of his talents.

 

I'm a Wheeler and Woolsey fan too. Lots of fun wordplay in their movies.

 

Agree completely. I wonder how it performed at the time though. I suspect/assumed it flopped, but a quick search hasn't come up with much to confirm or disprove this.