As we predicted here, Universal Home Video is bringing out a boxed DVD set of the five Marx Brothers movies they control — Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers and Duck Soup. It's called The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection and it comes out in early November with a list price of $59.98, which means $45 to $50 since no one on this planet pays list price.
This, of course, will go on your shelf right next to your copy of The Marx Brothers Collection, the DVD set from Warner Home Video that includes A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, At The Circus, Go West, Room Service, The Big Store and A Night in Casablanca. If you don't have that one yet, you can order it from Amazon for $42. This means that by the end of this year, you'll be able to own every single Marx Brothers feature — apart from The Story of Mankind with its brief, pointless cameos — for under a hundred bucks.
So is that everything? Well, not quite. There's still Love Happy.
It's an easy movie to forget about. In fact, when Groucho and Harpo wrote their autobiographies, they did. But that won't make their last and least-enjoyable film go away…and if you buy the good ones, your "completist" genes will probably compel you to get the DVD of this one, too. You can order if from Amazon right now by clicking here. Go ahead. It's only thirteen bucks. Think how much more they'd charge if Groucho appeared for more than a couple of minutes in what is basically a Harpo movie with a lot of Chico. As one might expect, the DVD cover plays up Groucho's brief role and the even-briefer screen debut of Marilyn Monroe. She's in the film about as long as it takes her to inhale and exhale once…which, by the way, she did very well.
For the most part though, it's a pretty weak movie…and this DVD may (I don't know for sure) be weaker than it needs to be. The original theatrical release was 91 minutes but for years, the prints available for TV and on VHS have run 85 minutes, omitting some footage that helps the film considerably. The Laserdisc release was 91 minutes but this DVD is advertised as being 85 minutes long. This was probably a silly oversight but part of me suspects they did it deliberately so that one of these days, they can con me into buying a supplemental Love Happy DVD containing just the other six minutes.