July
23,
2005
Irving
Thalberg, the legendary MGM wunderkind, took the Marx Brothers
under his wing in the mid 1930's, and their resulting collaboration,
A Night at the Opera, was an enormous success; it is also a comedy
classic and arguably the Brothers' best picture. It was quickly
followed up with A Day at the Races, which set to follow the
formula that worked so well.
Unfortunately,
Thalberg died during production, leaving us
with a movie that is both very entertaining and very flawed.
This was the last great success for the Brothers; in the following
years, their pictures at MGM would be saddled with formulaic
plots, poor scripting, and a general sense of malayse (of their
later pictures, only A Night in
Casablanca is really any good).
When Thalberg died, something in the Marx Brothers seemed to
die with him. For
my money, the best Marx Brothers films came from the Paramount
era - Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup, the greatest
of them all. These pictures were short - barely over an hour
each - but possessed with a a sense of anarchy. There was no
need for anything more than the barest of plots; the comedy and
only the manic comedy remained. You don't need an elaborate set-up
in a Marx Brothers movie anymore than you need a detailed plot
for a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You just hit the ground running and
make people laugh. Thalberg
changed all this, and saddled the Brothers with elaborate stories
and romantic subplots. With A Night at the Opera, this managed
to work, largely because the comedy was perfectly integrated
with the story. There were as many lines as in Duck Soup, time
for a couple musical numbers, and a number of routines that became
instant-comedy classics. By
comparison, A Day at the Races feels overweight, bloated. A running
time of two hours? This is absolutely inexcusable in a Marx Brothers
movie. If you cut half an hour out, it would still feel too long. Another
key problem is that the comedy isn't as integrated into the plot
as it could be. You feel as if Groucho, Chico, and Harpo have
become bit players in their own movie, and appear every now and
then for a great comedy routine, before being shuffled off-screen
to make way for another song-and-dance number. The
Marx Brothers should never be chained onto a conventional romantic
comedy. In Night at the Opera, the Brothers help two young lovers
become Opera stars, and that had some pull, some emotional strength.
In A Day at the Races, the Brothers try to save a sanitarium
from failing. Not exactly something to make you swoon. Who
in their right mind goes to a Marx Brothers comedy for
the romantic leads? It's like watching
The Muppet Show without any muppets. Even poor Allan Jones, who
never could fill Zeppo's shoes, lacks much of his boyish charm
he demonstrated in the previous film. I
cannot say for certain if Irving Thalberg would have trimmed
the fat had he lived, but I'd like to think so. His instincts
have never failed him before, and the Brothers (Groucho especcially)
trusted him wholeheartedly. I'd like to believe he'd cut one
or two of the extraneous dance numbers (they're very fine for
MGM, but, again, what's the point?). Now,
despite all this, A Day at the Races is very good when the Marx
Brothers are allowed to work their chaos. Margaret
Dumont is again present as Groucho's romantic foil, essential
as ever. And Sig Ruman demonstrates why he's perfect for playing
comic villains; he reminds me a lot of Harvey Korman in Blazing
Saddles. For
fans and comedy lovers, there is genuine classic routine: Chico's
Tootsy-Fruitsy Ice Cream hustle against poor Groucho. It's wonderfully
silly and ranks among their best; I don't think there's a comedy
skit in any of their later movies that compares to it. Later
on, there are antics with a racehorse, Chico and Harpo playing
charades, and the laughably chaotic "inspection" of Margaret
Dumont Dumont by all three Brothers. There are a couple great
Groucho gags here and there, but for me, that's about it. The
rest of this movie can go jump in a lake. Perhaps
it takes a certain kind of dedicated Marx Brothers fan to be
so harsh, and still think somewhat favorably, of a movie like
this. You have to battle the disappointment at the missed opportunities
with the sadness that this is really the beginning of the end.
Then you tell yourself to snap out of it and enjoy the good moments
as they come. Just be sure to keep your trigger finger on the
remote control. |
