
In case you don't know, the Marx Brothers—Julius, Leonard, Adolph and Herbert, better known to the world as Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo—were the premiere comedy team of an era that also boasted such classic acts as Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges. Duck Soup was their fifth film and despite being delayed for nine months by a contract dispute with Paramount, proved to be the best of their career, featuring some of the funniest and most famous scenes in the Marx Brothers canon.

With a month's rent already paid on the battlefield, war seems inevitable and the country teeters on the brink of anarchy. Desperate for a savior, Freedonia turns to that fearless man of the people, Rufus T. Firefly.

Playing Firefly is Groucho Marx, he of the lacerating wit, the greasepaint moustache and the most impeccable timing in the history of comedy. While the chief obstacle to achieving peace in our time is ostensibly Sylvania's conniving ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern), in fact, it's Firefly himself—his temper, his paranoia, his inability to make heads or tails of things a four year old child would understand.

And thus just like that, Freedonia finds itself at war.
The humorist Roy Blount, Jr., in his recent book Hail, Hail, Euphoria!, called Duck Soup "the greatest war movie ever made," and while I wouldn't say Harpo carrying a sandwich board reading "Join the Army and See the Navy" around a battlefield is as harrowing as the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan, I will agree that it's the best treatment ever of the causes of war. As a student of history, majoring in the subject in college and maintaining a lifelong interest in the to-ings and fro-ings of elected officials, I've concluded that nobody has ever launched a war thinking it was a bad idea, no matter how uninformed, misinformed or half-formed his reasons may have been for thinking so. (Yes, yes, I'm thinking of the War of Jenkins' Ear. Sue me.)
Don't get me wrong. Occasionally the world finds itself in a death match with, say, fascism, and it would be futile, not to mention suicidal, to sit on the sidelines, but more often than not, from the Crusades to Iraq's invasion of Iran and a hundred other major conflicts in between, the thinking leading to war is typically characterized by ego, paranoia, stupidity and shortsightedness, with very little afterwards to show for it but a pile of corpses, and when the smoke clears, everybody scratches their heads and promises to do better—until the next time, that is, when they go off and do it again.

Egging Firely on are Chicolini and Pinky (Chico and Harpo), who serve not only as Secretary of War and chauffeur, respectively, but also as the most incompetent double agents in history, infiltrating Freedonia's government on behalf of Trentino only to get sidetracked by scissors, doorbells and a cantankerous lemonade vendor.
"Well, you remember you gave us a picture of this man and said follow him? Well, we get on the job right away and in one hour—even-a less than one hour—"
"Yes?"
"—we lose-a da picsh. That's-a pretty quick work, heh?"

In consciously setting out to make the best Marx Brothers movie ever, director Leo McCarey ruthlessly streamlined the story, eliminating every element not directly related to producing laughs. In addition to cutting the usual harp and piano solos, he also cut a scripted romance between Zeppo and Raquel Torres (who played dancer Vera Marcal) as well as Zeppo's number "Keep On Doin' What You're Doin'" (recycled a year later for the Wheeler and Woolsey comedy, Hips Hips Hooray), effectively reducing the youngest Marx Brother to a bit player in his own movie.

In addition, McCarey's experience as a director of top comedy acts (Laurel and Hardy especially) shows in his ability to tether otherwise unrelated gags and one-liners to the framework of the story. On paper, Duck Soup is no more cohesive than Monkey Business or Horse Feathers, but McCarey is forever stitching scenes together with repeated dialogue, visual cues and recurring gags. $20 million is mentioned several times and many scenes are introduced with the Freedonian national anthem. Three times you see Groucho in bed, three times you see Chico or Harpo at the peanut stand.

These links, though unobtrusive, satisfy the mind's instinctive need for order and create a resonance that keeps the momentum of the picture from jerking to a halt every time the story changes gears.

Most importantly, McCarey provided visuals that for the first—perhaps, only—time in the Marx Brothers' career matched their subversive, surreal wit. I'm thinking particularly of the battle scenes at the tail end of the movie, when Groucho changes uniforms with every shot and the army of elephants, monkeys, dolphins, swimmers, fire engines, etc. that responds to his call for help. But there's also the scene where a dog emerges barking from Harpo's chest, and another scene where Harpo climbs out of Edgar Kennedy's bath in full-dress uniform. (That McCarey used these tricks to turn what in previous movies would have been a plot-heavy resolution into an surrealist's dream is just another reason why he was the best director the Marx Brothers ever worked with. In fact, I'm willing to bet all the surrealists' efforts combined had less impact on attitudes about war and authority than this one Marx Brothers movie. But I digress. Again.)
But of course ultimately Duck Soup is about the Marx Brothers and simultaneously reigned in and unleashed by an expert director of comedy, they were never better. Groucho was never more comfortable in front of the camera. Harpo, the act's unrestrained id, is not as wild as he was in such movies as Animal Crackers, but his bits are better integrated into the flow of the film than ever before. And Chico has the best role of his career, serving not just as a foil for Groucho's wit and Harpo's destructive impulses, but as a showcase talent in his own right. (If you want to read more about the Marx Brothers themselves, click here, but I'm warning you in advance, few who venture there ever return to talk about it.)

Fortunately, the Marx Brothers signed with Irving Thalberg shortly after Duck Soup's premiere and at MGM, the Brothers made two of their most successful movies, A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races. Audiences were in the mood to laugh at the Marx Brothers again. They've been laughing ever since.