Criterion Channel has just added a bunch of Marx Bros. movies. We already own the early Paramount ones (1929's Cocoanuts up to 1933's Duck Soup, widely regarded as their masterpiece (despite being the only one to cut out Chico's piano and Harpo's harp performances)) so we've (re-) watched the MGM ones which Queen named albums after, A Night at the Opera (1935) (the one with everyone crowding into a tiny ship's cabin, and the three brothers pretending to be famous bearded aviators - I'd already seen that before), and this one, which must be the longest they ever made, at nearly 2 hours. Verdict: it's good! I guess I had become convinced that everything went to shit fairly quickly after the initial glory years of the Paramount films, but both the MGM ones hold up, and might even rank above one or two of the Paramounts. They are definitely slicker, and the brothers seem less unstoppable forces of dangerous anarchy and more like lovable characters, and in this one in particular, there are fairly long stretches where not a single one of them is on screen (what is the point of a Marx Bros. film without a Marx Bro.?), but the interplay is as strong as ever, and (very importantly) the magnificent Margaret Dumont, who is not in all the Paramounts, is in fine fettle in both these. (According to Wikipedia, in a 1969 Dick Cavett interview, Groucho said that these two, both produced with famous MGM talent scout Irving Thalberg were the best the Marxes ever made. Sadly Thalberg died just after filming started on Day, and the Marxes left MGM despite Opera and Day being hits.) Anyway, about Day at the Races. It's set at the "Standish Sanitorium" in Florida, owned by the young and pretty Judy Standish (Maureen "Jane in the Tarzan films" O'Sullivan) who inherited it from her father, and whose richest patient is the rich Mrs. Emily Upjohn (Margaret Dumont, naturally) but which is otherwise struggling for clients (the film opens with Chico waiting with the free shuttle bus to the Sanitorium at the train station and finding that nobody wants to go there - they're all on the way to the nearby racetrack) and Judy will have to sell the Sanitorium in a couple of days to cover unpaid debts. Worse yet, although Upjohn has the funds to pay off the debts, she's tired of all its doctors telling her there's nothing wrong with her and is packing up to leave unless they hire her favorite doctor (who tells her what she wants to hear), Hugo Z. Hackenbush. Chico cables him letting him know that if he comes to work for them, he can basically write his own meal ticket, and we learn that Hackenbush is (of course) Groucho,
who is really a vet, but who had earlier soaked Upjohn for as much money as he could. That's two of the three brothers. Harpo is a jockey at the nearby racetrack who works for the horrible Morgan, who has sold a horse to Gil, the romantic lead of the movie (the same Zeppo lookalike who plays the same role in Opera, and who can actually really sing) because the horse can't stand Morgan so much that it goes crazy whenever it sees or hears him. Gil's plan is that the horse will make him enough money that he can pay off the Sanitorium's debt, but Judy is outraged at him blowing all the money he's earned at his job of nightclub singer on this hairbrained scheme. Anyway, all the pieces are there: Groucho arrives, placates Mrs. Upjohn, but enrages the man who wants to buy the Sanitorium, who thinks he's going to ruin his plans, and suspects him of being a phony, and (in one of my favorite scenes) tries to get through to the chief medical records office of Florida to check on Hackenbush's credentials, only to be intercepted by Groucho who does a number of impersonations that enrage our villain into yelling, so that he, as himself, calls on the intercom and tells him to pipe down because he's upsetting the patients. This causes the villain to leave the phone just long enough so that when he comes back Groucho pretends that while he was away he told him the information he wanted. Anyway, it's good. I actually like that better than the more famous "Tootsie Frootsie" routine that he and Chico do, that involves Chico selling him a bunch of books to stall him from betting on the horse Chico wants to win. For my money that one drags a bit. There are also numerous musical interludes - not just the usual (now reinstated after Duck Soup) Chico piano
and Harpo harp scenes, but an amazing Busby Berkeley-esque dance routine (starring a woman who goes on to attempt to seduce Groucho on behalf of the villain, who wants to burst in on them with the smitten Mrs. Upjohn in an attempt to break Groucho's hold on her, but the scheme is foiled because Chico and Harpo get wind of it)
and later on a huge series of song and dance numbers featuring what looks like almost a hundred black extras, who represent the poor folk who live around the stables where the three brothers are hiding out after things go south at the Sanitorium, and starring Ivie Anderson, who was the first singer for Duke Ellington's band.
This ends, regrettably, with the brothers applying blackface to "blend in" when the villains (one of whom is the sheriff) come looking for them. But (perhaps mercifully) nobody is fooled. The big climax of the film is, of course, at the race track, where Chico in particular has to cook up a bunch of schemes to delay the big race while Gil and Judy and Harpo steel back Gil's horse (whom Morgan repossessed) to enter the big race (having discovered that the horse's true talent is in the steeplechase). Harpo rides the horse to great effect, helped by pictures of Morgan and Groucho and Gil getting Morgan to shriek over the intercom, producing the desired maddening effect on the horse at the requisite junctures. Top entertainment all round, of all sorts (singing, dancing, musical performances, wordplay, horse racing - the movie is positively overstuffed), although I did find it to drag occasionally, which is unsurprising considering that it is almost twice as long as Duck Soup (and apparently was originally even longer - two songs were cut after early showings). Definitely a top ten Marx Brothers film!
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