#60 Duck Soup (1933)

Sigh.  All right, so...they're back.  And now there's a fourth, even less funny one called Zeppo. Let me just make sure Waldorf and Statler are ready to watch with me.


Waldorf: Well, you gotta give'm credit.
Statler: Why's that?
Waldorf: They're gonna keep on doing it until they get it right.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Plot summary (with spoilers): There's a fake country called Freedonia and they're out of money and some rich lady will loan them money, but only if the king or emperor or whatever resigns and they put in this dude she likes named Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho).  Kinda a cool name, so there's that at least.
So then there's a big ball or whatever to welcome the new King Firefly. The ambassador of a neighboring country named Tretino (the man, not the country) wants to woo the rich lady Mrs. Teasdale and get money for his country too, but his pretty friend Vera warns him that Mrs. Teasdale has a crush on Firefly so he probably won't get any.  Then they hatch a plan for Vera to seduce Firefly and Mrs. Teasdale will go to Tretino in her grief. Then Mrs. Teasdale introduces Firefly's secretary (Tretino) to Tretino and they talk about how Firefly is due to arrive any minute now and Tretino sure hopes he isn't late and Tretino says he definitely won't be late and then starts singing about how late Firefly isn't going to be and then everyone in the ballroom starts singing about how Firefly will arrive when the clock strikes ten and then they keep singing and singing and then all line up and face the doorway and the clock strikes and they sing and sing and then the song ends and...OMG.  You will not fucking believe it.  HE'S LATE.  It's funny because they said he wouldn't be late.
And then he shows up, but comes sliding down a pole in the middle of the room and joins everyone looking in the doorway and then they see him and phew.
Then Mrs. Teasdale talks to Groucho and he calls her fat and stupid and ugly and says "don't leave in a huff if you take a taxi you can leave in a minute and a huff".  Oh God, this is really happening again, isn't it?
Then Tretino shows up and Groucho is a dick to him because he thinks he's after Teasdale's money and Groucho wants it all to himself. So then Groucho sings about how he'll be a great new leader and everyone sings and blah.
Next scene. Tretino reveals he has employed two spies to spy on Groucho and figure out a way to unseat him somehow or something. The two spies turn out to be Chico and Harpo. Chico's the one who is funny because he's Italian and says horrible puns with a horrible fake accent.  Harpo is the one who doesn't talk and is basically a sociopath. In this scene, Tretino and Chico talk and Harpo honks his horn and produces giant shears which he uses to cut up Tretino's clothes and white paint that he uses to fuck up various things in Tretino's office.  (Okay, there was a kinda funny part when a lady brings in a telegram and Harpo reads it and gets pissed and crumbles it up and Tratino says "what did it say?" and Chico says, "He just gets mad because he can't read"  I chuckled.  Honest to God).
Then the scene ends with Chico promising to spy more on Groucho.
Then they're outside selling popcorn in a little kiosk in front of Groucho's castle or whatever and there's a hot dog vendor there, and Harpo's a total dick to him for no reason at all and steals the guy's hat over and over and honks his horn over and over and they all fall down and seriously I cannot fucking believe this shit. The scene ends when Harpo burns the guy's hat up. And the guy is just like "Why you little...." and all that.
So then Groucho sees them and hires them and tells them to come up to his office and there are more hijinks and Zeppo is also there  Harpo keeps cutting shit and also has a bunch of tattoos on his body and he seriously needs to go to jail.  Then Zeppo tells Groucho to goad Tretino into slapping him so that he'll have to leave the country but Groucho winds up slapping him instead which leads to Tretino declaring war on Freedonia.
Then Chico and Harpo are total assholes to the hot dog vendor guy again and burn his new hat.
Then Groucho flirts with Mrs. Teasdale, asks for a lock of her hair.  Then he says, "I'm letting you off easy.  I was gonna ask for the whole wig", in a cadence that suggests a joke, but there's no actual joke.  This is a running theme. He also says his father was a little too headstrong and his mother was an armstrong and the Headstrongs married the Armstrongs and that's how darkies were born, which is a racist word but also doesn't make any fucking sense as an actual joke.
Then Tretino enlists their help in breaking into Groucho's house and stealing his war plans. So they break in and lock Groucho in the bathroom and then dress up like Groucho to steal the plans from Mrs. Teasdale. Wacky stuff happens.  Then Groucho breaks out and does shtick in front of a mirror with Harpo dressed as Groucho, where they synchronize their movements like on all those Bugs Bunny cartoons and Bette Midler in Big Business and it's played out now, but it had to be pretty cool in its day, and wasn't bad now, I'll admit.  Though it goes on too long.
Then Chico and Harpo are arrested as spies.  Groucho says they'll get ten years in Levenworth or maybe eleven years in Twelveworth. Chico says something something rhymes with worth. A military guy runs in and says Tretino has troops on Freedonia's soil, this means war. A congressman guy says that will raise Freedonia's taxes.  Chico says he has an uncle that lives in Texas.  No, taxes!  Dollars, taxes.  Yeah, he lives in Dallas, Texas! Then there are two hundred thousand more puns.


Statler: These seats are awful
Waldorf: Why, can't you see anything?
Statler: That's the problem, I can see everything.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

So, then everyone sings a song about going to war, which starts out kind of fun and silly because of the sheer amount of extras all singing and dancing in perfect crazy choreography, but ultimately goes on too long.
Then there's a war and they keep shooting at each other and Groucho accidentally shoots his own men, and then offers to pay Zeppo five dollars if he'll keep it under his hat and then takes the money back and says he'll keep it under his own hat and that's the fucking joke there.  Then the other army invades but Tretino gets his head caught some debris and is stuck like he's in a stockade and the brothers throw vegetables as him. Then he surrenders and Groucho says, "sorry you'll have to wait until the food runs out" then they throw shit at Mrs. Teasdale too.

Statler: Just when you think this show is terrible, something wonderful happens.
Waldorf: What?
Statler: It ends.

BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!

Review: Better than A Night at the Opera, if I may damn with faint praise. I actually chuckled a few times, which is a few more than the other movie, and I admire the spirit of the thing, I guess.  The mirror thing was pretty cool, too. But Groucho's jokes for the most part aren't actual jokes, and he's the only tolerable one of the whole lot. Chico fucking grates on my nerves and Harpo is a complete overacting, smug, scenery devouring unfunny piece of shit, like Jerry Lewis times a thousand. Fucking hate him. Zeppo was a zero who didn't even register as a person, but at least he wasn't offensively horrible like Harpo.  At any rate, I'm done.  There are no more Marx movies on this list, thank god.

Stars: Two out of five.

Next, "Nashville", which is pretty exciting, and then "The Gold Rush", my second of three Charlie Chaplin movies.