The Marx Brothers' movies are leaving the Criterion Channel on June 30th (hey, that's today) so we watched the one that we hadn't seen that was highest rated, and it was pretty good! The boys are a decade on from their film debut, and have bounced around various studios, but they've got a formula and by god they're going to stick to it. It's got a Chico piano-sequence! It's got a Harpo harp sequence (which, following the lead of Day at the Races has him interacting with an all-black musical ensemble who suddenly appear as if from nowhere just for this sequence and then vanish again. This time, instead of calling him "Gabriel" they call him "Svengali" - the reason for both escapes me). But best of all, it has Groucho (as lawyer J. Cheever Loophole, and in this film wearing a rather distracting wig) singing one of the best Marx Bros. songs ever, "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" (which, coincidentally, also features in the next year's The Philadelphia Story) As I said, the plot is familiar. In a lot of their movies, somebody (not one of the brothers) is in charge of something that they're in danger of losing, nefarious outsiders try to ensure that they do lose it, and the brothers conspire to save them. In this case, it's Jeff Wilson, a scion of a rich family who has renounced his wealth to run the circus. He's borrowed $10,000 from John Carter, who is obviously a bad 'un, in league with Peerless Pauline (Eve Arden) the acrobat.
Their motives are unclear, but Carter calls in the debt early, expecting Jeff not to be able to pay it, in which case he gets to take over the circus, but is surprised to hear Jeff say he can pay it that night, on the train taking the circus from town to town. Meanwhile, Chico, who in this movie is "Antonio," a general dogsbody for the circus, who contacts Groucho for help, knowing that Jeff is in trouble. Harpo is "Punchy,"
an assistant to the strongman ("Goliath")
who is also in league with the bad guys, and who, besides being mean to Punchy (presumably because he accidentally hits in in the ass with a cannonball), along with the tiny "Little Professor Atom," he clonks Jeff on the head and steals the $10,000. It's now up to the boys to get it back. Key scenes involve Groucho walking on the ceiling in special shoes with Peerless Pauline,
whom he knows has his wallet stuffed in her cleavage (he looks straight at the camera and wonders if there's a way to retrieve it without violating the Hayes code). As is his plan, the wallet falls out when she's on the ceiling, but he's stuck there (until Harpo comes and unlaces his shoes) while she escapes; all three brothers visiting Professor Atom in his tiny home and trying to discover if the cigar found at the scene of Jeff's mugging is Atom's (an attempt repeated foiled by Chico - every time Groucho says to Atom "do you have a cigar?" Chico jumps in and offers his; and Harpo and Chico trying to search Goliath's room without waking him up. Finally, Margaret Dumont, who plays Jeff's rich aunt, appears. Groucho hits on the idea of getting the $10,000 from her, and arrives at her mansion to seduce her, as is his wont. She has asked the French conductor Jardinet to bring his orchestra over to play for her and has promised him $7,500. Harpo raises it to $10,000 and tries to divert Jardinet so that Jeff's circus will replace him as the entertainment at the aunt's big soirée. The climax features a wild chase featuring a "gorilla" and just about everyone, Dumont included, swinging from the trapeze. Very satisfying. Except for Groucho's wig.
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