Review: The 4 Marx Brothers at Paramount 1929 – 1933
Blu-ray: The 4 Marx Brothers at Paramount 1929 – 1933
People aged 30 and under have probably never experienced the pure joy of Saturday morning BBC television, where, just after ‘The Flashing Blade’ a 15 minute short would appear starring either Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. Then in the afternoon, a whole film, starring Laurel and Hardy or even The Marx Brothers. Today I believe that if Laurel and Hardy or The Marx Brothers made an appearance on BBC 2, most youngsters would turn off. On watching Duck Soup out of the new and rather wonderful Arrow Films box set, my 25 year old son looked on incredulously, literally agog at the chaos before him.
I love the Marx Brothers, as I love Laurel and Hardy. Old Vaudeville acts lucky to get a break in films. The beauty of this box set of all The Marx Brothers films is that it’s a complete package. If you’re a fan, it’s perfect, and if you’re not yet a fan, but want to find out, it’s the Marx Bros 101. All the Paramount (popular) films The Cocoanuts (1929), Animal Crackers (1930), Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932) and one of the greatest comedies of all time, the aforementioned Duck Soup (1933). There is also a feature length documentary (which really is excellent) about them, alongside another feature length documentary about the movies.
Now, how can I begin to explain the genius of these men? How to describe the ‘why a duck’? HOW? I simply can’t. As with Charlie Chaplin, and Abbot and Costello, they are like marmite, you hate them (or rather don’t ‘get’ them) or love them. Perhaps a way to describe them is a sort of ‘Comic Strip Presents’ or ‘The Young Ones’ for the 1930’s. Total irreverence, and almost surreal humour of the 3 main brothers (Groucho, Chico and Harpo) and occasionally the other one (Zeppo…I’m not going to mention Gummo, though I do think the real 5th Marx Brother is Margaret Dumont).
The films themselves (some based on their stage act) are absolutely bonkers. All of the narratives are … quite simply clunky and somewhat boring, and there are songs inserted to give the romantic leads something to do, and none of it matters because each film has madness in the form of the brothers in it. They are indescribable other than their hilarity. It’s like the brothers have been somehow dumped in the middle of a normal Hollywood film from space. My only moan is that A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races is missing, then this wonderful box set would really be complete. A fantastic set from Arrow Films with outstanding extras.
LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations of all five features, transferred from original film elements by Universal
- Original 1.0 mono audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Commentary on The Cocoanuts by film scholar Anthony Slide
- Commentary on Animal Crackers by film historian Jeffrey Vance
- Commentary on Monkey Business by Marx Brothers historian Robert S Bader and Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx
- Commentary on Horse Feathers by film critic FX Feeney
- Commentary on Duck Soup by Bader and film critic Leonard Maltin
- The Marx Brothers: Hollywood’s Kings of Chaos, a feature-length documentary containing interviews with Leonard Maltin, Dick Cavett and others
- Three excerpts from NBC’s The Today Show featuring interviews with Harpo Marx, Groucho Marx and Bill Marx
Review by Tina (co-host of 60 Minutes With) from discs kindly supplied by Arrow Films via Fetch Publicity.
