Groucho Marx clearly believed that leaders of capitalistic are by and large not tuned into the real world. This brilliant satire has stood the test of time exceptionally well. Why is this film (and King Kong) still not availalbe on DVD? Duck Soap is the Marx Brothers at their funniest, often their most political, and also at their most surreal. The whole film is great, but the last half hour of Duck Soup may be the funniest sequence in American film. 'Remember gentlemen you are fighting for this woman's honor, which is probably more than she ever did.' There's also a Paul Revere parody with Harpo that is quite mature for the times at what it is suggesting.Īnd despite all of this, Groucho still finds time to insult Margaret Dumont, as ever. The declaration of war becomes a huge parody of Buzby Berkley musicals, and the war itself is endlessly funny. There's the 'mirror' scene where Harpo and Groucho are identically dressed and try to outwit each other. Harpo and Chico get into a big rivalry with another peanut vendor. There are so many classic highlights in this film. They are all wonderfully inept at what they do and the two countries slide hilariously into war. Chico and Harpo are spies for rival nation Sylvania. Somehow Groucho, as Rufus T Firefly, gets to rule the country of Freedonia (Zeppo is one of his assistants). The nice thing about comedy is that you don't need to explain a lot of things.

Here and in the film Night at the Opera, the Marx Brothers reach loony heights few comedians ever reach. I recently saw this film at the local rep theater (AFI Silver) and the crowd laughed harder than they do at most modern comedy films.

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