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The Marx BrothersBiography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:One of the most colorful comedy teams of all time is happily also one of the most popular, despite having made only a dozen films together. Their anarchic style, honed during years of stage work and complemented by absurdist screenwriting, m ade the Marxes unique among screen comedians of the 1930s, although it must be said that most of their early films, highly regarded today, were indifferently received by Depression-era audiences. The brothers were encouraged by their mother Minnie, the daughter of vaudevillians, to take music lessons while still young boys. She also steered them into a show-business career, first in musical acts and later in bona fide stage productions in which they established their distinctive personae. Groucho was the fast-talking wisenheimer, Harpo the skirt-chasing mute, Chico (pronounced "Chick-o," by the way) the Italian-accented scam artist, and Zeppo the handsome straight man.In 1925 they conquered Broadway with "The Cocoanuts," and four years later were signed by Paramount to recreate their mayhem on film. The movie version, shot in New York's Astoria studio during the day while the brothers were engaged in performing "Animal Crackers" at night on stage, was reasonably successful, and was followed by a film adaptation of "Crackers" in 1930, also produced in New York. The Marxes then left for Hollywood and made three original films that purists consider their best: Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), and Duck Soup (1933), a unique blend of political satire and pure nonsense made at a time when Hitler was rising to power. It was not a hit, and the brothers (minus Zeppo), now considered a liability by their home studio Paramount, accepted an offer to work at MGM, where producer Irving Thalberg suspected he could utilize their talents to better advantage in more lavish, and better-crafted, films. He hired such writers as George S. Kaufman, and sent the brothers on the road to try out their new "scripts" before live audiences until the material (and the timing) were airtight. Although the Marxes' madcap comedy was diluted by liberal splashes of music and romance, A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937) turned out to be terrific movies and their most successful at the box office. After Thalberg's death in 1937 and the brothers' reassignment to other producers, the quality of their vehicles slipped. After filming Room Service (which had been a successful stage farce, the screen adaptation of which was reworked to accommodate their personae) while on loan to RKO in 1938, the Marxes ended their MGM stay with the less successful At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940), and The Big Store (1941). The team split up as the brothers pursued individual interests in and out of show business. They later reunited for A Night in Casablanca (1946); all three appeared in Love Happy (1949), but Groucho only briefly, and they were in separate segments of The Story of Mankind (1957). | Marx Movies
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