Coniam - The Annotated Marx Brothers : a filmgoers guide to in-jokes, obscure references and sly details

Matthew Coniam

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-1876-0

2015 Matthew Coniam. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

On the cover: 1930 publicity photo for Animal Crackers.

Left to right: Chico, Groucho, Harpo, Zeppo.

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

For Edward

I wrote my first book on the Marx Brothers around Christmas 1983. I was ten years old and had been aware of the Brothers for a few days. At sixteen pages it was a little light on information, and somewhat sketchy in its factual authority (I thought Zeppo was the one who played the piano). Looking at it now, it is all too obvious that its author had not yet read Bergsons Laughter (Essai sur la signification du comique). But what it lacked in research it more than made up for in vague felt-tipped pen illustrations.

Now, at long last, here is the second edition.

And because I have read Bergson by now, I cant help but recall his assertion that cranks of the same kind are drawn, by a secret attraction, to seek each others company as I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the many cranks without whom this book would have been the merest shadow of its present self:

First and especially to Glenn Mitchell, author of the invaluable-is-putting-it-too-mildly Marx Brothers Encyclopedia, for the generosity with which he has volunteered time, insight and rare Thelma Todd movies; to Anthony Blampied, who as well as being my man on the inside at the Cinmathque Royale de Belgique has long offered professional encouragement and personal friendship in unique and irreplaceable union; to Grouch McGummo (a.k.a. Simon Louvish), Scott Saternye and Trudy Marshall, who read early drafts and made helpful suggestions; to Chuck Harter, who pulled superb research finds out of his hat in Los Angeles; to Randy Skretvedt, who couldnt be a nicer guy (scientific fact); to Steven R. Wright, who kindly allowed me to make use of his work on the two versions of Love Happy; to David A. Cory, who generously donated his essay on Lydia for use as an appendix; to my editor, Dylan Lightfoot, who sounds like he should be a 1930s private eye, and to Richard Larcombe, who has been all four of the Three Musketeers for two and a half decades.

Further invaluable assistance or information was provided by Joe Adamson, Richard J. Anobile, Patrick Barr, George Bettinger, Noah Diamond, Allen Eyles, Meg Farrell, Steve Garland, Steven Kurtz, Annette DAgostino Lloyd, Ian McLagan, Jim Marx, Damian OHara, Robert Moulton, Thomas Rcz, Ben Robinson, Jenny Romero (Margaret Herrick Library), Michael J.C. Taylor, Mikael Uhlin, Raymond White and Tighe Zimmers.

The readers of my blog The Marx Brothers Council of Britain and the members of its spin-off Facebook group have been unendingly helpful in providing plausible solutions to the many conundrums I have placed before them; my gratitude to them all, and especially to Bill Andres, Annie Bones, Jay Brennan, Marjie Cardwell, Eugene Conniff, Geno Cuddy, Kevin Jon Davies, Glenn F, Billy Frolick, Bill Groves, Jason Hyde, Ginger Ingnue, Lotten Kalenius, Debra MacLaughlan-Dumes, Jessica Martin, Josh Max, Steve Miller, Alice Mulconry, Mary OBenar, Scott T. Rivers, Tom Rogers, Stefan Timphus and Bluejay Young.

And thanks above all to my behind the scenes research team and sounding board for their inexhaustible energy, enthusiasm, efficiency and good company. They are: Ed Watz, pre-eminent expert on all things comedic, whose faith in this project, and the help and encouragement he has given at every stage, go way beyond generosity and into the sort of eccentricity that gets people asked to leave early at parties; Rodney Stewart Hillel Tryster, a man who gives polymathy a good name (well, a better one than Rodney, anyway), and a master of archival research who saved the day time and again with his supernatural ability to find exactly the right 80-year-old one-inch newspaper clipping at exactly the most helpful moment; Andrew Smith, author of the definitive Flywheel guide Marx and Re-Marx, and an invaluably free-thinking influence on the Love Happy chapter in particular; W. Gary Wetstein, a constant force of both encouragement and restraint, and a shrewd judge of relevance and tone (whose advice I should have ignored far less frequently), and Bob Gassel, whose occult gift for suggesting new avenues of interpretation, couched in some deceptively casual asides, has enriched the book in countless ways, and led directly to the complete rewriting of at least three chapters.

Finally I would like to thank my parents for letting me stay up and watch these films when I was ten years old, my sister Helen for putting up with the consequences, my wonderful wife, Angela, for accompanying me to all of them at the National Film Theatre when wed only been going out a couple of months and still letting me marry her afterwards, and our baby son, Edward, for graciously consenting to sleep occasionally so I could get the book written.

Between 1885 and 1901, Minnie Marx and her husband Samuel produced six sons. The first, Manfred, tragically died at the age of just seven months. But the other five, who had sensible names too, but remain better known as Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo, grew up to become the Marx Brothers.

Spurred on by the aspirations of their stage-struck mother, they grew from a boy act to one of the top comedy turns of vaudeville. Gummo, who was never comfortable under the lights, used the First World War as the excuse he needed to duck out. With Zeppo in his place they went on to conquer Broadway.

And after that, they made a bunch of films that still provoke helpless laughter to this day.

And what happened after that is that a whole bunch of writers wrote a whole bunch of very good books about those films. So doubtless you are wondering why Im expecting you to care about the fact that Ive come along and written another one.

Well, rest assured that this is not an attempt to tell you what you already know, nor to supplant the work of those esteemed Marxian scribes who have gone before me. This is not a history, nor a biography, nor a series of reviews, but a viewers guide to the films themselves.

What does that mean? Well, it means that each chapter focuses on a different movie and, after a general introduction, takes the form of a running commentary, discussing points raised by the film as and when they appear, filling in background detail, pointing out things you might just have missed, and explaining a few of the more obscure jokes and references. Every section referred to is precisely located in the running time, with the time code given for both PAL and NTSC DVD, so you can quickly look it up to refresh your memory. Or, you can keep the book by your side as you watch the movies in full, to be referred to whenever the mood strikes. Sometimes what I have to offer will be a mere nugget, other times a lengthy digression, but always, I hope, something that adds to your enjoyment. Think of it as a travelling companion as you ramble through the landscape of these remarkable comedies, both a newcomers guide and an addicts resource, a source of contention and of illumination, a mire of speculation and an oasis of confirmation, and all of these things at one and the same time.