A few days ago here, I offered the apparently-controversial opinion that of the movies starring the Marx Brothers, the best one to show someone unfamiliar with those boys is A Night at the Opera. If you're going to limit your choices to the films they made for Paramount, then Horse Feathers.
Somehow, about a dozen of you read that as me saying those are the best Marx Brothers movies and want to challenge me to a duel at ten paces for daring to suggest that Duck Soup was not the greatest movie they ever made. It may well be but that's not what I was discussing. I was discussing which film you show — as I need to do with my friend Amber — as an introduction to Groucho, Harpo and Chico, as well as the outside possibility of Zeppo.
And to the person who wrote me to ask, "No love for Monkey Business?" Yes, sure, absolutely. I love Monkey Business. I'm not really sure how the plot wraps up at the end…but then I was never entirely sure what the plot was in the first place but I still love Monkey Business. It has, in fact, my favorite scene in any Marx Siblings movie. I was going to link you to something I wrote here about it back in 2006 but I'll save you a click and reprint it here…
Let us review. The boys are stowaways on an ocean liner. They have no passports so they can't get off the ship. Zeppo gets hold of the passport of the great French entertainer Maurice Chevalier and somehow knows that the bearer of it can prove it's his by singing one of Chevalier's songs. Well, that's an obvious assumption now, isn't it? I mean, how else would the customs guys verify that the holder of a passport was indeed that person? They'd expect him to perform his big hit tune, right? So to get off the boat, all four Marxes are going to have to pretend to be someone they're not.
This is not quite ridiculous enough so let's make it worse: Since they have only the one passport, they'll all pretend to be the same person. Not only that but they're all going to pretend to be a well-known celebrity that none of them resembles in any way.
The Italian guy's going to tell them he's Maurice Chevalier. And after that doesn't work, the rude guy with the mustache and no French accent whatsoever is going to tell them he's Maurice Chevalier. Even the guy who doesn't talk is going to claim to be Maurice Chevalier…and he's really got a surefire plan. First, he'll bolster his chances of getting through by throwing around all the papers on the Customs Agents' table like a maniac. That will surely make the officials more likely to believe he's Maurice Chevalier. Then he'll mime to a record, assuming they won't notice the phonograph under his coat, nor wonder about the sudden appearance of musical accompaniment from nowhere. And then to really convince them, he'll mess up all their papers again and rubber stamp the customs agent's bald head. If that doesn't prove he's Maurice Chevalier, nothing will.
(And that's really the point of the whole scene: Nothing will. Harpo's chances of getting through aren't all that much worse than what Zeppo tried, which was to actually impersonate Maurice Chevalier.)
Chico Marx Maurice Chevalier
It's the perfect summary of what was wonderful about the Marxes. After spending the first half of the movie doing everything possible to avoid the security personnel on the liner, not one of the four brothers pauses to wonder if it's a good idea to go up to the ship's police and all claim to be someone that none of them could possibly be. Even after the plan has completely failed three times, Harpo doesn't hesitate to try it…and I think it yields one of the most beautiful, wonderful scenes anyone ever put into a movie. Because you can go through life doing things the logical way or you can do them the illogical way. Should you decide to do something the illogical way, the way that is almost certain not to work, you might as well make it all as illogical as humanly possible. If that isn't the best advice in the world then my name isn't Maurice Chevalier.
So there's love for Monkey Business. And the truth is that I kinda love something in every Marx Brothers movie — yes, even Love Happy — even if it's only watching one or more of those guys running around triumphing over weak material. I finally decided that the best way to deal with the question "What's your favorite Marx Brothers movie?" is to not have one.
It's not mandatory. You can't get through life without a driver's license, a Social Security number, a place to live, a means of earning a living, a complete collection of Groo the Wanderer, water, food, clothing, some means of transportation (these may not be in order of importance), oxygen (I probably should have put that near the top of the list) and a number of other things. But I stand before you on this blog as living proof that you can get by just fine without a favorite Marx Brothers movie. I do not have one.
If I did, it would be Duck Soup but I don't have one so it isn't.
