Duck Soup was the last of five films that the Marx Brothers would make at Paramount, before upgrading to the more prestigious Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Although now universally regarded as one of their best films (along with A Night at the Opera), it was a commercial flop upon release, and it drew mixed reviews from contemporary critics.
Duck Soup may be the zaniest of their many films. The plot is reduced to a series of running gags, and the supporting characters are mere cardboard foils for the madcap brothers. But sometimes a comedy that has no pretense of any drama can replace those usually key elements with the intensity of its gags and jokes. This is the case for Duck Soup, as well as most of the early Marx Brothers films.
What there is of the plot has Groucho becoming president of the small European nation of Freedonia. Scheming Trentino (Louis Calhern), a diplomat of the neighboring Sylvania, plots against Groucho. His top spies, God help him, are Harpo and Chico.
Trentino also works with a seductive beauty (Racquel Torres). She tries to compromise Groucho, so as to make him out of favor with his rich benefactor (Margaret Dumont). Dumont appears in seven different Marx Brothers films, always cast as a wealthy dowager infatuated with Groucho and oblivious to his ceaseless insults.
Working as spies, Harpo and Chico pose as street vendors. They have frequent encounters with a hapless balding competitor (Edgar Kennedy), tormenting him and ruining his business. Meanwhile, Groucho's reckless incompetence as President leads to war between Freedonia and Sylvania. Having satirized governmental ceremony, the film's final third lampoons war. At one point, Groucho fires on his own troops by accident, and bribes Zeppo with $5 to keep it a secret.
Duck Soup is the tightest of the Marx Brothers films. Just over an hour in length, it lacks the usual extraneous musical numbers from Chico and Harpo, and has no romantic subplots. At its best, the direction is lunatic and inspired, with so much going on that it takes multiple viewings to comprehend it all. But just as often, it seems like a plotless sequence of gags. While they are undeniably funny, the absence of any real story or characters hampers the film.
Duck Soup was the final film for Zeppo Marx, the youngest of the brothers. He had played a 'straight man' in their five Paramount films. Zeppo felt that he didn't fit in, and subsequently became an inventor and talent agent.
My favorite film of this era and genre isn't by the Marx Brothers, but by W.C. Fields in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941). Bringing Up Baby (1938) is an even better screwball comedy, but its story has too much structure to be directly compared with Duck Soup. (67/100)
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