I am not including Humor Risk on the list since no one still alive has ever seen it. That said, it was always interesting to see the team shake up their template a bit, like in The Big Store where Harpo starts working with Groucho, and A Night In Casablanca, which starts with Harpo rather than Groucho, who enters surprisingly late in the film. Chico and Harpo would start the film at odds with Groucho (and Zeppo), but they would be working together by the end. Some would argue that they became too sentimental as the films progressed. However, they were generally good natured. Regardless of their jobs, they usually had a bit of larceny in their hearts.
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Zeppo left the team at the end of their Paramount contract after Duck Soup, turning the foursome into a trio, and opening the door for lame MGM straight men like Allan Jones, Kenny Baker and Tony Martin.Ĭhico and Harpo usually started a film as friends and equals. They had some very good scenes together, like the dictation scene in Animal Crackers. Zeppo gave Groucho someone to play off until Chico and Harpo arrived. Zeppo once summed up his role in the films as "introducing Groucho at a party." However, there was much more to it than that. Zeppo almost always acted in a subservient position to Groucho, often as an employee or even, in the case of Horse Feathers, as his son. The films usually began by establishing Groucho and Zeppo's characters. Structurally, the four Marx Brothers generally began as pairs in their stories. However, because of their financial losses in the stock market crash, the brothers made the move to Hollywood. In 1921, they had self-financed a short, Humor Risk, which they didn't deem worthy of release.
MARX BROTHERS MOVIES RANKED MOVIE
Being movie stars was never high on the brothers' ambitions. Hungry for sound productions, Paramount filmed the final two plays in its New York Astoria studios. They had three successful shows, I'll Say She Is, The Coconuts and Animal Crackers. The team achieved a great deal of success in vaudeville and parlayed it onto the Broadway stage. Zeppo generally played a straight character, without the exaggerated characteristics of his brothers. He replaced his brother Milton " Gummo" Marx, 1893-1977, who left to troupe to fight in World War I. He embodied a spirit of pure, anarchic slapstick, but he played the harp with a great deal of seriousness.
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He also played the piano well to comic effect. Chico, pronounced Chick-O, parlayed the popular ethnic comedy of the era into his persona of an Italian immigrant schemer who was smarter than he appeared. Groucho was the quick-witted would-be ladies' man specializing in puns, insults and wordplay. The brothers honed their skills and developed their comic personas in vaudeville. The classic formation of the group consisted of the four brothers: Leonard " Chico" Marx, 1887-1961 Arthur " Harpo" Marx, 1888-1964 Julius " Groucho" Marx, 1890-1977 and Herbert " Zeppo" Marx, 1901-1979. (And this is coming from someone who actually still has some of their movies on 16mm.)įor the uninitiated, here's a brief summary of the team and their comic stylings. It was like seeing them again for the first time. At least he inspired me to pick up Blu-Rays of the Paramount films. My wife said surely you've heard of the Marx Brothers. That name elicited a blank expression from the waiter. We were having a nice discussion until my wife mentioned Groucho Marx. We had a chatty young waiter who was a self-proclaimed movie fan. Then I took my lovely wife Deborah to lunch a few weeks ago. I preferred to believe that millennials still knew and respected the Marx Brothers.
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However, I soon became intrigued by these mysterious people who put words in the mouths of my screen idols.
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I assumed the actors made up all of the witty things they said. In fact, I first became of aware of the existence of screenwriters when I read a book about the making of their films. My first "script" was stringing out a number of their routines into a different order. The Marx Brothers were a huge influence on me. Lately I have been listening to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, which revels in stories of old Hollywood, and heard a few guests claim that people don't know who the Marx Brothers are anymore.