The Marx Brothers: Screwball Comedy; Duck Soup

After our viewing of The Music Box & Hal Roach's Little Rascals, we'll continue our comedy series with screwball comedy.

Screwball Comedy is a style of comedy popularized in the 1930s. At its center is the need for Depression-era audiences to escape into mass entertainment. They are a product of their time. Typical romances (the right guy gets the girl), lampooning or criticism of the leisure or upper class, parties, food, and, of course, music made these films excellent examples of what sound in film was capable of providing to audiences.

Protagonists are drawn from lower and middle classes, often centering around a male protagonist whose normal life is upended by falling in love with a feisty female. At the same time, usually, there is a mismatched couple who act as foil or counterpoint to this more appropriate couple. Marriage is always the end result. 

As the Hays Code took effect, screwball comedy remained safe social satire with a lot of farce. Fast-paced dialogue, puns or wordplay, and wit, sight gags, screwy or silly plot twists, mistaken identity, and zany characters are all characteristics of the Screwball Comedy style. Songs are sometimes slipped into the action. As we view Duck Soup (1933), look for the following characteristics:

• Mistaken Identities
• Crossdressing
• Romantic storyline or plots (often with the lovers being mismatched)
• Class or economic issues
• Fast-talking dialogue (witty repartee) 
• Ridiculous situations
• Farce (sudden or unexpected entrances or exits, physical humor, etc.)

From Tim Dirks, AMC: 

"The Marx Brothers' classic comedy Duck Soup (1933) is a short, but brilliant satire and lampooning of blundering dictatorial leaders, fascism, and authoritarian government. The film, produced by Herman Mankiewicz, was prepared during the crisis period of the Depression. Some of its clever gags and routines were taken from Groucho's and Chico's early 1930s radio show.

It was the Marx Brothers' fifth (and last) film in a contract with Paramount Studios before they went on to MGM. The film was directed by first-class veteran director Leo McCarey, and its screenplay was written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin). The film was devoid of any Academy Award nominations.

The outrageous film was both a critical and commercial failure at the time of its release - audiences were taken aback by such preposterous political disrespect, buffoonery and cynicism at a time of political and economic crisis, with Roosevelt's struggle against Depression in the US amidst the rising power of Hitler in Germany. 

Insulted by the film, fascist Italian dictator Mussolini banned the film in Italy. Fortunately, the film was rediscovered by a generation of 1960s college students, and by revival film festivals and museum showings. As a result, the film has attained immortal status. 

This was the last of the Marx Brothers films to feature all four of the brothers. Their next film (without Zeppo), for MGM and its producer Irving Thalberg, Hollywood's most prestigious studio, was their landmark film A Night at the Opera (1935), with a more developed and polished plot-line.

The comedians in the film attack the pomposity of small-time governmental leaders (Firefly as President), the absurdity of government itself (the Cabinet meeting scene), governmental diplomacy (the Trentino-Firefly scenes), an arbitrary legal system (Chicolini's trial), and war fought over petty matters (the mobilization and war scenes). 

The non-stop, frenetic film is filled with a number of delightfully hilarious moments, gags, fast-moving acts, double entendres, comedy routines, puns, pure silliness, zany improvisations, quips and insult-spewed lines of dialogue - much of the comedy makes the obvious statement that war is indeed nonsensical and meaninglessly destructive, especially since the word 'upstart' was the insulting word (Ambassador Trentino calls Firefly an 'upstart') that led to war between the two countries. 

Unlike many of the Marx Brothers other features, there are no romantic subplots (with Zeppo) and no musical interludes that stop the film's momentum - no harp solos for Harpo and no piano solos for Chico. There are, however, a couple of musical numbers that are perfectly integrated into the plot.

The film's title uses a familiar American phrase that means anything simple or easy, or alternately, a gullible sucker or pushover. Under the opening credits, four quacking ducks (the four Marx Brothers) are seen swimming and cooking in a kettle over a fire. Groucho reportedly provided the following recipe to explain the title: "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life."

The Story

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The film opens with the flag of Freedonia (emblazoned with an "F") flying over the small village. The government of a "mythical kingdom" - the Balkan state of Freedonia, is suffering an emergency. It has gone bankrupt through mismanagement and is on the verge of revolution. The country's richest dowager millionairess, the wide and widowed benefactress Mrs. Gloria Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) has offered $20 million to sponsor and support the cash-poor government, but only if it is placed under new leadership.

The opening scene is the classic inaugural ceremony and lawn party for the conferring of the Presidency of the tin-pot republic to a newly-appointed leader, Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx), characterized by a supportive Mrs. Teasdale as "a progressive, fearless fighter." 

In the coronation setting (a spoof of all such gala events), royal court guards at the entry announce the guests. Meanwhile, the representative of the neighboring Sylvania [the name of the country where Jeanette MacDonald ruled in Ernst Lubitsch's The Love Parade (1929)], Ambassador and rival suitor Trentino (Louis Calhern), schemes to win Mrs. Teasdale's hand in marriage by wooing the rich heiress (with the ultimate goal of annexing Freedonia to Sylvania). He has hired the seductive, sultry, and sinuous Latin temptress/dancer Vera Marcal (Raquel Torres), to function as a secret agent and keep Firefly distracted [in a satire of all Mata Hari films]."

As you watch (and read), notice characteristics of Screwball comedies:

• Mistaken Identities
• Crossdressing
• Romantic storyline or plots (often with the lovers being mismatched)
• Class or economic issues
• Fast-talking dialogue (witty repartee) 
• Ridiculous situations
• Farce (sudden or unexpected entrances or exits, physical humor, etc.)

HOMEWORK: Read the script Duck Soup. Examine the films' narrative structure, witty and clever dialogue, and screwball comedy techniques.