Duck Soup

Only in a Marx Brothers movie could a man named Rufus T. Firefly be president of a country. Only in a Marx Brothers movie would someone who looked like Groucho be president of a country. But that is the nature of the Marx Brothers. They took the inexplicable and played it for laughs, a full 40 years before irony and irreverance was a standard form of comedy. While most of their comedy was based on slapstick and word play (all of it funny mind you), when they really set out to lampoon a sacred institution, in this case politics, they proved themselves to be masters of satire and social humor. Rufus T. Firefly, for instance, insists he must go to war because "I've already paid a month's rent on the battlefield". He also instructs one of his subordinates to build trenches six feet deep so they won't need any soldiers. It is jokes like these that set the Marx Brothers apart from other, different comics of the time. Not to take anything away from the genius of Chaplin or Keaton, but their comedy was more predicated on emotion and pathos. The Marx Brothers could seemingly care less about making you cry, or think. All they wanted from their audience was laughter. All of their movies are funny, but in movies like "Duck Soup" and their other classic "A Night at the Opera", the Marx Brothers pushed the bar into the stratosphere, with countless jokes, gags, and pratfalls.

The film opens with the coronation for new dictator Rufus T. Firefly, who of course has overslept and arrives via firemen's pole. Relations with neighboring Sylvania are strained and Firefly is not exactly a diplomatic diplomat. Prone to insulting anyone and everyone, he makes quick work of Sylvania's ambassador Trentino, who has designs on the Freedonian throne and its biggest patron, Mrs. Teasdale. Trentino, representing the much stronger nation of Sylvania, would still prefer to marry Mrs. Teasdale and peacefully segue onto the Freedonian throne, but Firefly proves to be more of a challenge than he anticipated and soon the two countries are preparing for war. To help the Sylvanian attack Trentino enlists two spies, Chicolini and Pinky, to infiltrate Freedonia and steal military secrets. That is all well and good, except the two spies happen to be the clueless Chico and the silent Harpo, who spend more time frustrating a lemonade vendor than they do shadowing Firefly. As the film progresses little things like plot and characterization become less and less of a priority as the jokes and gags continue to pile up. In one scene Firefly is offering Chicolini a post in his cabinet, and the next he's on trial for espionage. The trial scene is a hilarious example of Marx Brothers nonsense. Groucho, always playing foil to some stuffed shirt, inexplicably comes to Chicolini's defense and then leads the entire congregation, err, courtroom in a bizarre folksy rendition of "Freedonia's Going to War!", complete with choreographed dance moves. What follows is in my opinion the Marx Brothers greatest sustained sequence from all of their films.

The final "war" scene is literally overflowing with gags and jokes. After Firefly calls in the reserves (cut to men, women, children, dogs, cats, monkeys, elephants, etc.) we cut to presumably the last safe house in Freedonia, where Firefly, Chicolini, Pinky, Bob Roland (boring name for the boring Marx, Zeppo) and Mrs. Teasdale are desperately avoiding the Sylvanian assault. Peppered throughout this sequence are 1) Pinky "combing the countryside for new recuits" (walking amidts tanks and bombs with a sandwich board that reads 'Join the Navy, See the World!'), 2) Pinky getting locked in a closet full of explosives which of course all go off, 3) Firefly wearing five different military costumes (my favorite being the Davy Crockett ensemble) and getting a large water jug stuck on his head, which Pinky helps identify as Firefly by drawing his likeness on it, 4) Groucho keeping score of the number of Sylvanian troops the men disengage as he would a billiards game, then declaring game when they capture Trentino, and 5) pelting Trentino with fruit until Mrs. Teasdale begins wailing the Freedonian anthem, then turning the fruit on her. This extended, bravura sequence is a worthy finale for the Marx Brothers, for after this film their careers, while thriving for almost another decade, were never the same. "Duck Soup" was the Brothers last film for Paramount, and with their change to MGM came momentum-killing musical numbers (not the silly irreverent tunes all of their Paramount films had), silly romantic subplots (usually involving Kitty Carlisle and Alan Jones and said momentum-killing musical numbers) and no Zeppo, which frankly, was not really a loss. The Marx Brothers definitely reached their zenith with "Duck Soup", but for several years were still going strong at MGM with "A Night at the Opera", "A Day at the Races", and the underrated "At the Circus". But pound for pound, "Duck Soup" is their funniest, most sustained comedic masterpiece. "Hail! Hail, Freedonia!"