"Say She Is"". Their third feature-length film, ""Monkey Business"" (1931), was their first movie not based on a stage production. ""Horse Feathers"" (1932), in which the brothers satirized the American college system and Prohibition, was their most popular film yet, and won them the cover of ""Time"" magazine. It included a running gag from their stage work, in which Harpo produces a ludicrous array of props from inside his coat, including a wooden mallet, a fish, a coiled rope, a tie, a poster of a woman in her underwear, a cup of hot coffee, a sword; and, just after Groucho"
"in the Paramount promotional film ""The House That Shadows Built"" (1931). The concept of the Marx Brothers being stowaways on a ship would be repeated in an episode of their radio series ""Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel"" (1933) in the episode ""The False Roderick"" and would also be recycled in their MGM film ""A Night at the Opera"" (1935). The essence of Groucho's joke, ""Sure, I'm a doctor—where's the horse?"" would serve as an integral plot element for their film ""A Day at the Races"" (1937). Also repeated in that later film would be the uproarious medical examination that Harpo and"
"while constantly trying to evade the ship's crew. Prior to this development, the film has no real plot, with the Brothers merely causing unending uproar. Except in the credits and in the screenplay, the Brothers' characters have no names in this film. They are referred to simply as ""the stowaways"". After arriving stateside, one of the gangsters kidnaps the other's daughter, leaving it up to the brothers to save the day. Writers S. J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone were excited to be working with the Marx Brothers, but producer Herman J. Mankiewicz advised them to lower their expectations, calling"
"Suicide Fleet Suicide Fleet is a 1931 American Pre-Code drama film directed by Albert S. Rogell, written by Lew Lipton and F. McGrew Willis, and starring William Boyd, Robert Armstrong, James Gleason, and Ginger Rogers. It was released on November 20, 1931, by RKO Pictures. Three friends who work on the Coney Island boardwalk, Skeets O'Reilly, Baltimore Clark, and Dutch Herman are all in love with the same woman, Sally. At the outbreak of World War I, the three men enlist in the US Navy. Before they leave for active duty, both Skeets and Baltimore meet with Sally, with the"
"Animal Crackers (1930 film) Animal Crackers is a 1930 Pre-Code Marx Brothers comedy film, in which mayhem and zaniness ensue when a valuable painting goes missing during a party in honor of famed African explorer Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding. A critical and commercial success on its initial release, filming took place at Paramount's Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens; it was the second of two films the Brothers would make in New York City. The film stars the Four Marx Brothers, Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo, with Lillian Roth and Margaret Dumont. It was directed by Victor Heerman and adapted from"
"filmed in Multicolor during the rehearsal of a scene in ""Animal Crackers"" was found and aired as a part of the AMC documentary ""Glorious Technicolor"" (1998). The clip is significant because it is the oldest known color footage of the Marx Brothers, and also for an appearance by Harpo without his usual costume and wig. Animal Crackers (1930 film) Animal Crackers is a 1930 Pre-Code Marx Brothers comedy film, in which mayhem and zaniness ensue when a valuable painting goes missing during a party in honor of famed African explorer Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding. A critical and commercial success on"
"Goliath Awaits Goliath Awaits is a 1981 American made-for-television action-thriller film originally broadcast in two parts in November 1981 on various stations as a part of Operation Prime Time's syndicated programming. It is about an ocean liner sunk by a German U-boat in 1939 whose wreck is discovered in 1981 with over 300 survivors and their descendants living in an air bubble inside the ship. On September 4, 1939, the British ocean liner RMS ""Goliath"", carrying 1,860 passengers, is torpedoed by a German U-boat and sinks within minutes while on a transatlantic crossing to the United States three days after"
"The first Marx Brothers/Thalberg film was ""A Night at the Opera"" (1935), a satire on the world of opera, where the brothers help two young singers in love by throwing a production of ""Il Trovatore"" into chaos. The film—including its famous scene where an absurd number of people crowd into a tiny stateroom on a ship—was a great success, and was followed two years later by an even bigger hit, ""A Day at the Races"" (1937), in which the brothers cause mayhem in a sanitarium and at a horse race. The film features Groucho and Chico's famous ""Tootsie Frootsie Ice"
"Marx Brothers The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) as among the top 100 comedy films, with two of them (""Duck Soup"" and ""A Night at the Opera"") in the top twelve. They are widely considered by critics, scholars, and fans to be among the greatest and most influential comedians of the 20th century. The brothers were included in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of the 25"
"way. As the Marx Brothers, he and his brothers starred in a series of popular stage shows and movies. Their first movie was a silent film made in 1921 that was never released, and is believed to have been destroyed at the time. A decade later, the team made two of their Broadway hits—""The Cocoanuts"" and ""Animal Crackers""—into movies. Other successful films were ""Monkey Business"", ""Horse Feathers"", ""Duck Soup"", and ""A Night at the Opera"". One quip from Marx concerned his response to Sam Wood, the director of ""A Night at the Opera"". Furious with the Marx Brothers' ad-libs and"
"Marx Brothers movie ""Horse Feathers"" (1932). Allen is a well-known Groucho Marx fan. Marx's theme song from ""Animal Crackers"" (1930) ""Hooray for Captain Spaulding"" is featured, sung in French by a chorus of Groucho Marx's. The film was released theatrically in North America on December 8, 1996 on three screens. Its opening weekend gross was $131,678 ($43,892 per screen). It ended its North American run with $9,759,200. The film was well received. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 79% ""fresh"" rating, based on 43 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's consensus states: ""A likable, infectious musical,"
"was released in April 1931, two months after Wolheim's death, and is preserved at the Library of Congress. Smiley Marsden (Ian Keith) is a bank-robber on the run from the police, with his moll, Frisco Kitty (Mary Astor). Cornered, they arrive at the San Francisco docks, where they convince the captain of a small cargo ship, Sam McVeigh (Louis Wolheim), to take them aboard on his run to Mexico, mostly because he is enchanted with Kitty. Marsden is posing as a minister. As the ship sets sail, every sailor aboard lusts after Kitty, none more so than the captain. One"
"and is also the only scene in the film that has anything remotely to do with ducks or soup. Popular belief holds that ""Duck Soup"" was a box office failure, but this is not true. Although it did not do as well as ""Horse Feathers"", it was the sixth-highest-grossing film of 1933, according to Glenn Mitchell in ""The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia"" and Simon Louvish in ""Monkey Business"", his biography of the Marx Brothers. However the film was a box office disappointment for Paramount. One possible reason for the film's lukewarm reception is that it was released during the Great Depression."
"Marx Brothers film ""Duck Soup"" (1933) is set in a bankrupt Freedonia. Antal Szerb's ""Oliver VII"" (1943) features a monarch of a fictional Central European state who plots a coup against himself and then flees to Venice in order to experience the life of an ordinary person. In the satire ""The Mouse That Roared"" (1955), the Duchy of Grand Fenwick attempts to avoid bankruptcy by declaring war on the United States as a ploy for gaining American aid. In Vladimir Nabokov's ""Pale Fire"" (1962), the main narrator has the delusion of being the incognito king of a ""distant northern land"""
"the highest-grossing movie of 1932, surpassing the all-star ""Grand Hotel"". ""Shanghai Express"" was remade as ""Night Plane from Chungking"" (1942) and ""Peking Express"" (1951). In 1931, China is embroiled in a civil war. Friends of British Captain Donald ""Doc"" Harvey (Clive Brook) envy him because the fabulously notorious Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich) is a fellow passenger on the express train from Peking to Shanghai. Because the name means nothing to him, they inform him that she is a ""coaster"" or ""woman who lives by her wits along the China coast"" – in other words, a courtesan. On the journey, Harvey"
"Horse Feathers Horse Feathers is a 1932 Pre-Code comedy film starring the Marx Brothers. It stars the four Marx Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo) and Thelma Todd. It was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, and Will B. Johnstone. Kalmar and Ruby also wrote some of the original music for the film. Several of the film's gags were taken from the Marx Brothers' stage comedy from the 1900s, ""Fun in Hi Skule"". The term ""horse feathers"" was a colloquial American expression for ""nonsense"" in the 1920s and 1930s but is now archaic. The film revolves around"
"as a mysterious disease. Complicating things, the ""Goliath"" had been carrying some sensitive documents to President Roosevelt. A joint American/British military team is sent by Admiral Wiley Sloan (Eddie Albert) to retrieve and destroy the documents. The interiors of ""Goliath"" were principally filmed on location aboard the RMS ""Queen Mary"" in California. Goliath Awaits Goliath Awaits is a 1981 American made-for-television action-thriller film originally broadcast in two parts in November 1981 on various stations as a part of Operation Prime Time's syndicated programming. It is about an ocean liner sunk by a German U-boat in 1939 whose wreck is discovered"
"In New York City, 1938 Arthur (Tucci) and Maurice (Platt) scrape a living by petty swindles, practicing their acting technique whenever they can. Following a drunken confrontation with pretentious and dreadful Shakespearean actor Sir Jeremy Burtom (Alfred Molina), they are forced to hide as stowaways on an ocean liner. Unfortunately for the duo, Burtom himself turns out to be a passenger on the ship, along with a vividly diverse ensemble of larger-than-life characters: a suicidal crooner named Happy Franks (Steve Buscemi) sobs through a song; Mr. Sparks (Billy Connolly), an aging gay professional tennis player; the first mate Voltri (Tony"
"fixed. In February, Paramount announced that the title had been changed to ""Grasshoppers"" (""because animal stories are so popular""), and that filming was set back to February 20. However, on May 11, 1933, the Marx Brothers' father Sam ""Frenchie"" Marx died in Los Angeles, and shortly afterward the contract dispute with Paramount was settled. The ""New York Post"" reported on May 17 that the Brothers would make a new comedy for Paramount, called ""Duck Soup"". Leo McCarey was set for direction of the film. Three days later ""The New York Sun"" reported that ""Duck Soup"" would start filming in June."
"out of stuffed shirts and barbecue a few sacred cows, but something got lost in all that MGMness when the screen's ultimate anti-authoritarian team starting working the Andy Hardy side of the street."" The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: Stateroom scene Sanity clause General Informational notes Citations Further reading A Night at the Opera (film) A Night at the Opera is a 1935 American comedy film starring the Marx Brothers, and featuring Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, and Walter Woolf King. It was the first of five films the Marx Brothers made"
"was miscast and George Brent was ""not at his best"". Luxury Liner (1933 film) Luxury Liner is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film directed by Lothar Mendes and starring George Brent, Zita Johann and Vivienne Osborne. It was based on a 1932 novel by Gina Kaus, and made by Paramount Pictures. Mendes worked on a number of films for Paramount during the era. Shortly after making the film, he went to Britain where he directed his most celebrated film ""Jew Süss"". The steamship ""Germania"" is setting sail from Bremen to New York, with a stop in Cherbourg. Dr. Veith is"
"At the Circus At the Circus (also called The Marx Brothers at the Circus) is a 1939 Marx Brothers comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which they help save a circus from bankruptcy. The movie is notable for Groucho Marx's classic rendition of ""Lydia the Tattooed Lady"". The supporting cast includes Florence Rice, Kenny Baker, Margaret Dumont, and Eve Arden. Goliath, the circus strongman (Nat Pendleton) and the midget, Little Professor Atom (Jerry Maren), are accomplices of bad guy John Carter (James Burke) who is trying to take over the Wilson Wonder Circus. Julie Randall (Florence Rice) performs a horse"
"and Chico were going ""... to produce a film called ""The Marx Brothers at Yale""."" Sheekman commented, ""It was inevitable of course that Mrs. Marx's boys should be sought after as film comedians; for there are few stage buffoons who come within blocks of their talents for comedic pantomime ..."" (Rather than ""The Marx Brothers at Yale"" that turned Mrs. Marx's boys into legendary film comedians, it was ""The Cocoanuts"", released in August, 1929.) Then again after the Broadway run of their musical play, ""Animal Crackers"" (October 1928 – April 1929), the brothers again came to Chicago on tour. Sheekman"
"lost film. No copies are known to exist. Rough Waters Rough Waters is a 1930 all-talking adventure drama film that directed by John Daumery and starring Rin Tin Tin. The film was adapted by James A. Starr from a story by Lillie Hayward, and was the last Rin Tin Tin film produced by Warner Bros. The film begins with a parked car with drawn curtains inside of which three gangsters (played by Walter Miller, Richard Alexander and Skeets Noyes) and silently waiting for their prey. When a large closed vehicle approaches the car with gangsters it crashes and the gangsters"
"Mariners of the Sky Mariners of the Sky (also known as Navy Born) is a 1936 American comedy-drama film directed by Nate Watt, in his directorial debut. The film stars William Gargan , Claire Dodd and Douglas Fowley. Filmed with the cooperation of the U.S. Navy, it was a mild recruiting film in an era when the United States military was gearing up for a future war. U.S. navy pilot Tex Jones (Addison Randall) is stationed on an aircraft carrier and learns that he is a father. He shares the news with his best pals and fellow pilots, ""Red"" Furness"
"true Marx note, is never apparent."" The November 11, 1939 ""Ottawa Citizen"" described the film as ""a veritable riot of hilarity"" and ""possibly the nuttiest of the films that Groucho, Chico and Harpo have perpetuated."" At the Circus At the Circus (also called The Marx Brothers at the Circus) is a 1939 Marx Brothers comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which they help save a circus from bankruptcy. The movie is notable for Groucho Marx's classic rendition of ""Lydia the Tattooed Lady"". The supporting cast includes Florence Rice, Kenny Baker, Margaret Dumont, and Eve Arden. Goliath, the circus strongman (Nat"
"as Captain Spaulding. ""He was so good as Captain Spaulding in ""Animal Crackers"" that I would have let him play the part indefinitely, if they had allowed me to smoke in the audience"", Groucho recalled. However, a comic persona of his own that could stand up against those of his brothers did not emerge. As critic Percy Hammond wrote, sympathetically, in 1928: One of the handicaps to the thorough enjoyment of the Marx Brothers in their merry escapades is the plight of poor Zeppo Marx. While Groucho, Harpo and Chico are hogging the show, as the phrase has it, their"
"According to Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx, Mankiewicz originally developed this story with the intent of making it a Marx Brothers film, but they declined. Hank Mann, comedian, silent film star and founding member of the Keystone Cops, apparently played the role of a customs inspector in the film, but his part was cut from the final release. All promotional material for the film lists him in the main cast, and one lobby card shows him in costume with George Barbier. Million Dollar Legs (1932 film) Million Dollar Legs is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film starring Jack Oakie"
"[Italian] henchman"". Zeppo portrayed a playboy who was the owner of a nightclub in which most of the action took place, including ""a cabaret, [which allowed] the inclusion of a dance number"". The final shot showed Groucho ""in ball and chain, trudging slowly off into the gloaming"". Harpo, in a rare moment of romantic glory, gets the girl in the end. Humor Risk Humor Risk, also known as Humorisk, is a 1921 comedy short film that was the first film to star the Marx Brothers. It was never released and is now considered a lost film. The print may have"
"top of the bill for six weeks in major theatre markets. The film was also nominated at the 1939 Academy Awards for Best Original Score. Pacific Liner Pacific Liner is a 1939 American action/adventure film directed by Lew Landers. The film stars Victor McLaglen, Chester Morris and Wendy Barrie. ""Pacific Liner"" depicts the ill-fated voyage of a disease-ridden passenger liner. In 1932, aboard the passenger ship, the S.S. ""Arcturus"", engineer ""Crusher"" McKay (Victor McLaglen) runs a ""tight ship"", both beloved and feared by his men. The ship's doctor, ""Doc"" Tony Craig (Chester Morris), has signed on in Shanghai to be"
"Room Service (1938 film) Room Service is a 1938 RKO film comedy directed by William A. Seiter, based on the 1937 play of the same name by Allen Boretz and John Murray. The film stars the Marx Brothers and also features Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Alexander Asro, and Frank Albertson. This is the only Marx Bros. film that was not written especially for the team. Less frenetic and more physically contained than their other movies, the plot revolves around the shenanigans of getting a stage play produced and funded by mysterious backer Zachary Fisk, while evading paying a large hotel"
"his friends, and Miss Reiner invade his hotel room and sneak from suitcase to closet and back again to unpack his bags, which serves to drive him thoroughly mad. Arrested on false charges, Kornblow, Corbaccio and Rusty eventually crash Stubel's plane into a police station where the brothers expose Stubel as an escaped Nazi. A popular myth (spread in part by Groucho himself) surrounding the movie is that the Marx Brothers were threatened with a lawsuit by Warner Bros. for the use of the word ""Casablanca"" in the title, it being an infringement on the company's rights to the 1942"
"also the Brothers' other Paramount films, ""The Cocoanuts"", ""Animal Crackers"", ""Monkey Business"", and ""Horse Feathers"". Reviewing the set, film critic Mark Bourne writes: Duck Soup (1933 film) Duck Soup is a 1933 pre-Code Marx Brothers comedy film written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin, and directed by Leo McCarey. First released theatrically by Paramount Pictures on November 17, 1933, it starred what were then billed as the ""Four Marx Brothers"" (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo) and also featured Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern, Raquel Torres and Edgar Kennedy. It was the last"