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July 6, 2020 · 1:19 pm

The Set of 400: #43 – My Favorite Party of the First Part

Today! Because you should have come to the first party. We didn’t get home until around four in the morning. I was blind for three days –

A Night at the Opera (1935)

Directed by Sam Wood (x2)

Starring Groucho Marx (x6), Chico Marx (x6), Harpo Marx (x6), Margaret Dumont (x3), Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones (x2), Sig Ruman (x5), Walter Woolf King (x2), Edward Keane, Robert Emmet O’Connor, Billy Gilbert (x2)

So if you want to get really technical, the Marx Brothers have three distinct periods of their film career – The terrific Four Marx Brothers years (’29 through ’33) and the mediocre Three Marx Brothers years (’38 to ’49), bookending the shortest but most successful period, the two film set of great Three Marx Brothers pictures under Irving Thalberg, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races. They are no longer the zany, joke-heavy antics of the early films, plus the romantic lead duties have fallen to non-relative Allan Jones, in lieu of Zeppo. There are more songs, slightly more runtime, bigger budgets thus larger set pieces, and far bigger box office receipts at Thalberg’s MGM than their Paramount films before or RKO/UA/non-Thalberg MGM ones later.

A Night in Casablanca was a disappointment on all fronts

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Tagged as A Night at the Opera, Allan Jones, Chico Marx, Favorite Movies Ever, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, The Marx Brothers

January 6, 2020 · 2:10 pm

The Set of 400: #173 – My Favorite Breeder’s Guide

Today! Because I really am a horse doctor, but marry me, and I’ll never look at another horse –

A Day at the Races (1937)

Directed by Sam Wood

Starring Groucho Marx (x3), Harpo Marx (x3), Chico Marx (x3), Allan Jones, Maureen O’Sullivan (x2), Margaret Dumont (x2), Sig Ruman (x3), Esther Muir, Douglass Dumbrille, Dorothy Dandridge, Leonard Ceeley

The last really good Marx Brothers movie (and even that is up for some debate), A Day at the Races functions as a solid last gasp for the team, even though they couldn’t have known it when production began. Like on A Night at the Opera two years earlier, they had the benefit of road testing some of the material, to get the jokes down solid and the timing together to hold for laughs. They had the enthusiasm and support of MGM boss Irving Thalberg, who threw them the money and resources to make this work, and got the film launched before cameras in the fall of ’36.