Like all people who refuse to grow up, I love the Marx Brothers. But I fully admit that their movies are a mixed bag. There is total insanity followed by total boredom. I am not talking about Margaret Dumont here. She is brilliant and I don’t think Groucho is ever funnier than when he’s interacting with her. The problem is that the films are filled with standard stories with anemic characters who no one cares about.
Take Animal Crackers for example. I love this film. I often put it on to cheer myself up. But what is the plot? It is rather clever, to be honest, but I doubt that one out of a hundred viewers notice it. A painting is being unveiled at the party. The romatic couple decide to replace the painting with one that he did to illustrate what a great painter he is so that they can get married. The paintings switched, some social rivals of Margaret Dumont switch his excellent copy with a terrible copy. In the end, everything is righted, the young man is proclaimed a genius, and the couple can marry.
The problem is that almost nothing is done to make this main plot interesting. Add to this the extreme heights of brilliance whenever the Marx Brothers are on screen and you end up with a film that is half great and half boring. I think this is why most people hold Duck Soup in such high regard: it is pretty much all Marx Brothers all the time. And I agree. But I think it suffered at the time of its release because it was ahead of the times. It is just gag after gag without much in terms of a plot. Just to give it some cohesion, it brings back the Sylvanian ambassador multiple times to remind everyone that this is all about the country going to war.
I think the Marx Brothers really manage to bring it all together in their first MGM film, A Night at the Opera. I just watched this film again and I was very impressed with how it manages to integrate the brothers into the story. In a fundamental way, the story is no different than Animal Crackers: the romantic couple want to marry but they can’t until he gets a chance to show everyone what a great singer he is. But in this case, Chico is his manager who makes a contract with Groucho who kind of represents the opera. Actually, this is my favorite scene (unfortunately a very bad copy):
I think there is a reason that there hasn’t been a lot of just dumping Marx Brothers bits together. It can be kind of hard to take. They are at their best when they are integrated into a story. I also appreciate that they are a little more likable in A Night at the Opera. Even though Duck Soup is funnier, I think that A Night at the Opera works better as a film.
I don’t know that liking the Mark Brothers means someone refuses to "grow up" — but their brand of humor IS best tied to a story, because it gives audience members time to breathe. I think one just gets exhausted from laughing so hard at jokes that are essentially based in mocking normality. We almost need those conventional interludes, the Harpo musical moments, the Zeppo plot, the commercial breaks in MST episodes.
To my mind the cleverest, best-written Python film was "Meaning Of Life" but it was the least satisfying to audiences because there were no breaks; no moments of straightforward plot contrivance. You can pick your favorite skit from that movie (I like the musical ones particularly) and it’s better done than any skit from the other movies, yet as a whole it’s not as fun as "Brian" or "Grail" (which have fewer great jokes per minute, and still they are more fun for most viewers.)
On "growing up": a few years back, Bobcat Goldthwait did an interview with The Onion about his movie "World’s Greatest Dad" (which is sporadically amusing, not worth watching if one has better things to do.) But I liked one thing he said in it. He mentioned how a central character was forced to "grow up," and how he defined this (I paraphrase from memory) was learning how to be realistic about when other people are dragging you down by putting you down. Because you’re not Quite Successful Enough. And part of maturity is realizing those relationships just aren’t healthy.
That definition of "maturity/growing up" blew me away; it’s not what we think of when those phrases are mentioned. Obviously our friends and loved ones can inspire us to do more with our lives or help us out of ruts. Those phrases, though, "maturity" and "growing up," usually mean making more money, as in, "that commitment to the non-profit food bank was charming at 25, but now we’re 30 and have to get Serious."
I’ll always give Goldthwait credit and thanks for that statement, even if I don’t necessarily see every movie he makes. That particular notion has helped me enormously in my personal life, and how often can this be said about celebrity meanderings?
@JMF – I mean "grow up" colloquially, of course. What I’m getting at (as you do) is the process where people’s minds ossify with age. It’s all about delight. If you can be delighted, you have managed not to "grow up."
I watched most of [i]Love Happy[/i] last night. It is a surprisingly terrible Marx Brothers movie. Almost no Groucho, not too much Chico (although there is a nice musical moment), and way too much Harpo. The film isn’t very good regardless, but I’ve never been that fond of Harpo.