Turner Classic Movies' annual "31 Days Of Oscar" marathon starts tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Here's the schedule:
All Times Eastern
The Right Direction 1 Tuesday 6:00 AM Eskimo (1933) 8:00 AM Hide-Out (1934) 9:30 AM Manhattan Melodrama (1934) 11:15 AM Thin Man, The (1934)
Self-Made Men 1:00 PM Citizen Kane (1941) 3:00 PM Great Dictator, The (1940) 5:15 PM Richard III (1955)
What A Character! 8:00 PM Private Life Of Henry VIII, The (1933) 10:00 PM Man for All Seasons, A (1966) 12:15 AM Anne Of The Thousand Days (1969)
Love At First Sight 2:45 AM Last Summer (1969) 4:30 AM Anthony Adverse (1936)
2 Wednesday 7:00 AM Great Waltz, The (1938) 8:45 AM Little Foxes, The (1941) 11:00 AM Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) 2:15 PM Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, The (1968) 4:30 PM Lonelyhearts (1958) 6:15 PM Moon Is Blue, The (1953)
Most Nominated Actor 8:00 PM Five Easy Pieces (1970) 10:00 PM Terms of Endearment (1983) 12:30 AM Easy Rider (1969) 2:15 AM Last Detail, The (1973)
Husbands And Wives 4:15 AM Guardsman, The (1931)
3 Thursday 6:00 AM Witness For The Prosecution (1957) 8:00 AM Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Four In One 10:30 AM Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) 12:30 PM Johnny Belinda (1948) 2:30 PM For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943) 5:30 PM Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)
1929-1930 8:00 PM Love Parade, The (1929) 10:00 PM All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) 12:30 AM Big House, The (1930) 2:00 AM Divorcee, The (1930) 3:30 AM Disraeli (1929)
Kerr Trouble 5:00 AM Edward, My Son (1949)
4 Friday 7:00 AM Separate Tables (1958) 9:00 AM Sundowners, The (1960)
Like Kissing Your Sister 11:30 AM Champ, The (1931) 1:00 PM Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1932) 2:45 PM Lion In Winter, The (1968) 5:15 PM Funny Girl (1968)
An All-Knighter 8:00 PM Heiress, The (1949) 10:00 PM Bridge On The River Kwai, The (1957) 1:00 AM Ryan's Daughter (1970) 4:30 AM Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)
5 Saturday 7:15 AM Othello (1965) 10:15 AM Becket (1964)
The Good Luck Charm 1:00 PM Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) 3:00 PM One Hour With You (1932) 4:30 PM Awful Truth, The (1937) 6:15 PM Father Of The Bride (1950)
Real Men 8:00 PM Stand And Deliver (1988) 10:00 PM Gandhi (1982) 1:30 AM Ali (2001) 4:30 AM Lust For Life (1956)
6 Sunday 7:00 AM Conquest (1937) 9:00 AM Abe Lincoln In Illinois (1940) 11:00 AM Jolson Story, The (1946) 1:15 PM Birdman Of Alcatraz (1962) 3:45 PM Viva Zapata! (1952) 5:45 PM Pride Of The Yankees, The (1942)
Retired Categories 8:00 PM Sunrise (1927) 10:00 PM Wings (1927) 12:30 AM House on 92nd Street, The (1945) 2:15 AM Viva Villa! (1934) 4:15 AM Damsel In Distress, A (1937)
All Or Nothing 7 Monday 6:00 AM Here Comes the Navy (1934) 7:30 AM Trader Horn (1931) 10:00 AM House of Rothschild, The (1934) 12:00 PM Libeled Lady (1936)
Picture Perfect 1:45 PM Black Swan, The (1942) 3:15 PM Snows Of Kilimanjaro, The (1952) 5:15 PM South Pacific (1958)
Playing Out The String 8:00 PM Blossoms In The Dust (1941) 10:00 PM Mrs. Miniver (1942) 12:30 AM Madame Curie (1943) 2:45 AM Mrs. Parkington (1944) 5:00 AM Valley Of Decision, The (1945)
The Most Nominations ... Without Winning 8 Tuesday 7:00 AM Shoes of the Fisherman, The (1968) 9:45 AM Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954) 11:30 AM 2010 (1984) 1:30 PM Hanging Tree, The (1959) 3:30 PM On the Beach (1959) 5:45 PM Caine Mutiny, The (1954)
Winners In Both Leading And Supporting Roles 8:00 PM Gaslight (1944) 10:00 PM Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) 12:00 AM Glory (1989) 2:30 AM Sin Of Madelon Claudet, The (1931)
Alien Invasions 4:30 AM Red (1994)
9 Wednesday 6:30 AM Woman In The Dunes (1964) 8:45 AM Battaglia di Algieri, La (1967) 11:00 AM Z (1969)
The Write Stuff 1:30 PM Ball Of Fire (1941) 3:30 PM Foreign Affair, A (1948) 5:30 PM Fortune Cookie, The (1966)
Memorable Oscar Moments 8:00 PM Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) 10:00 PM Cavalcade (1933) 12:00 AM What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Sweet Music 2:30 AM Some Came Running (1958) 5:00 AM Robin And The 7 Hoods (1964)
10 Thursday 7:15 AM Rich, Young And Pretty (1951) 9:00 AM Because You're Mine (1952) 11:00 AM Tonight and Every Night (1945) 12:45 PM Romance On The High Seas (1948) 2:30 PM Anchors Aweigh (1945) 5:00 PM Star! (1968)
The Most Decorated Decorator 8:00 PM Annie Get Your Gun (1950) 10:00 PM American in Paris, An (1951) 12:00 AM Too Young To Kiss (1951) 2:00 AM Picture of Dorian Gray, The (1945) 4:00 AM Thousands Cheer (1943)
11 Friday 6:15 AM National Velvet (1944) 8:30 AM Yearling, The (1946) 10:45 AM Random Harvest (1942) 1:00 PM Quo Vadis (1951) 4:00 PM Executive Suite (1954) 5:45 PM Little Women (1949)
Any Regrets? 8:00 PM Graduate, The (1967) 10:00 PM Forrest Gump (1994) 12:30 AM Pretty Woman (1990) 2:45 AM Cat Ballou (1965)
Brother And Sister Acts 4:30 AM Free Soul, A (1931)
12 Saturday 6:15 AM None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
The Best Of The Best 8:15 AM Dark Victory (1939) 10:00 AM Of Mice and Men (1939) 12:00 PM Ninotchka (1939) 2:00 PM Wuthering Heights (1939) 4:00 PM Stagecoach (1939) 5:45 PM Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) 8:00 PM Wizard Of Oz, The (1939) 10:00 PM Gone With the Wind (1939) 2:00 AM Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) 4:00 AM Love Affair (1939)
They Shoot, He Scores 13 Sunday 6:00 AM Cowboy And The Lady, The (1938) 8:00 AM Keys of the Kingdom, The (1945) 10:30 AM Camelot (1967) 1:45 PM Daddy Long Legs (1955) 4:00 PM Coney Island (1943) 6:00 PM Mother Wore Tights (1947)
It Takes Two 8:00 PM Miracle On 34th Street (1947) 10:00 PM Going My Way (1944) 12:30 AM Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) 2:15 AM Story of Louis Pasteur, The (1935)
Oscar Falls In Love 4:00 AM Room With a View, A (1985)
14 Monday 6:00 AM Alice Adams (1935) 8:00 AM Flirtation Walk (1934) 10:00 AM More the Merrier, The (1943) 12:00 PM Talk Of The Town, The (1942) 2:00 PM Bishop's Wife, The (1947) 4:00 PM Philadelphia Story, The (1940) 6:00 PM Goodbye Girl, The (1977)
All In The Family 8:00 PM Rachel, Rachel (1968) 10:00 PM Casablanca (1942) 12:00 AM Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948) 2:15 AM Victor/Victoria (1982)
French Kisses 4:45 AM Cousin, Cousine (1975)
15 Tuesday 6:30 AM Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987) 8:15 AM Last Metro, The (1980) 10:30 AM Black Orpheus (1959) 12:30 PM Mon Oncle (1958)
The Most Writing Nominations 2:30 PM Alice (1990) 4:30 PM Radio Days (1987) 6:00 PM Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Oscar Firsts 8:00 PM My Man Godfrey (1936) 10:00 PM Cimarron (1931) 12:15 AM Lilies of the Field (1963) 2:00 AM Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) 4:15 AM Two Women (1960)
16 Wednesday 6:00 AM Grand Illusion (1937) 8:00 AM Chang (1927) 9:30 AM Lady For A Day (1933) 11:15 AM Life Of Emile Zola, The (1937) 1:15 PM Since You Went Away (1944) 4:15 PM Sounder (1972) 6:15 PM Swing Time (1936)
It's An Honor Just To Be Nominated 8:00 PM My Favorite Year (1982) 10:00 PM Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 2:00 AM Stunt Man, The (1980) 4:15 AM Ruling Class, The (1972)
17 Thursday 7:00 AM Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)
How To Earn An Oscar Nomination? 10:00 AM Never On Sunday (1960) 12:00 PM Butterfield 8 (1960) 2:00 PM Street Angel (1928) 4:00 PM Anna Christie (1930) 5:30 PM Irma La Douce (1963)
Auspicious Debuts 8:00 PM 12 Angry Men (1957) 10:00 PM Chariots Of Fire (1981) 12:15 AM Room at the Top (1959) 2:15 AM American Beauty (1999)
Oscar ♥ New York 4:15 AM Do the Right Thing (1989)
18 Friday 6:30 AM Naked City (1948) 8:15 AM Dead End (1937) 10:00 AM Five Star Final (1931) 11:45 AM On the Town (1949) 1:30 PM It's Always Fair Weather (1955) 3:15 PM My Sister Eileen (1942) 5:00 PM Producers, The (1968) 6:30 PM It Should Happen To You (1954)
The Most Writing Wins 8:00 PM Hospital, The (1971) 10:00 PM Marty (1955) 12:00 AM Network (1976) 2:15 AM Goddess, The (1958)
The Most Best Actor Nominations 4:15 AM San Francisco (1936)
19 Saturday 6:15 AM Bad Day At Black Rock (1955) 7:45 AM Old Man and the Sea, The (1958) 9:15 AM Inherit The Wind (1960) 11:30 AM Captains Courageous (1937)
The Most Supporting Actor 1:30 PM Come And Get It (1936) 3:30 PM Westerner, The (1940) 5:30 PM Sergeant York (1941)
Clean Sweeps 8:00 PM Gigi (1958) 10:00 PM Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) 1:30 AM Last Emperor, The (1987)
Nominated For Best Director, Not Best Picture 4:15 AM Blow-Up (1966)
20 Sunday 6:15 AM 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 9:00 AM Summertime (1955) 11:00 AM Morocco (1930) 12:45 PM In Cold Blood (1967) 3:15 PM Third Man, The (1949) 5:15 PM Inn of the Sixth Happiness, The (1958)
From Stage To Screen 8:00 PM Born Yesterday (1950) 10:00 PM My Fair Lady (1964) 1:00 AM Auntie Mame (1958) 3:30 AM Hasty Heart, The (1950) 5:30 AM Night Must Fall (1937)
21 Monday 7:30 AM Subject Was Roses, The (1968) 9:30 AM Sweet Bird Of Youth (1962) 12:00 PM Watch On The Rhine (1943) 2:00 PM Magnificent Yankee, The (1950) 3:30 PM Bad Seed, The (1956) 6:00 PM Member of the Wedding, The (1952)
Oscar Onlys 8:00 PM State Fair (1945) 10:00 PM Best Years Of Our Lives, The (1946) 1:00 AM Pygmalion (1938) 2:45 AM Two Arabian Knights (1927) 4:30 AM Midsummer Night's Dream, A (1935)
22 Tuesday 7:00 AM Divine Lady, The (1929) 8:45 AM Limelight (1952) 11:15 AM Day At The Races, A (1937) 1:15 PM Ship of Fools (1965) 3:45 PM Devil and Daniel Webster, The (1941) 5:45 PM Skippy (1931) 7:15 PM Red Balloon,The (1956)
Two In One 8:00 PM Defiant Ones, The (1958) 10:00 PM Amadeus (1984) 1:00 AM Thelma & Louise (1991) 3:15 AM Giant (1956)
23 Wednesday 6:45 AM Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
Sound Bites 8:45 AM Too Many Husbands (1940) 10:15 AM Lost Horizon (1937) 12:30 PM You Were Never Lovelier (1942) 2:15 PM Sahara (1943) 4:00 PM Cover Girl (1944) 6:00 PM Song to Remember, A (1945)
Best Picture, But Not Most Academy Awards 8:00 PM All the King's Men (1949) 10:00 PM You Can't Take It With You (1938) 12:15 AM Great Ziegfeld, The (1936)
Most Honored Foreign Director 3:30 AM Amarcord (1973)
24 Thursday 6:00 AM 8 1/2 (1963) 8:30 AM La Strada (1954)
Awards By Association 10:30 AM Lavender Hill Mob, The (1951) 12:00 PM Great Expectations (1946) 2:00 PM Cromwell (1970) 4:30 PM Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Most Directing Nominations 8:00 PM Dodsworth (1936) 10:00 PM Ben-Hur (1959) 2:00 AM Friendly Persuasion (1956) 4:30 AM Collector, The (1965)
Sister Acts 25 Friday 7:00 AM Suspicion (1941) 9:00 AM To Each His Own (1946)
Rookies Of The Year 11:15 AM Marie Antoinette (1938) 2:00 PM Corn Is Green, The (1945) 4:00 PM Search, The (1948) 6:00 PM Bus Stop (1956)
Five For Four 8:00 PM On The Waterfront (1954) 10:00 PM From Here To Eternity (1953) 12:15 AM Tom Jones (1963) 2:30 AM Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
On Second Thought 4:30 AM Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
26 Saturday 7:45 AM Ivanhoe (1952) 9:45 AM King Solomon's Mines (1950) 11:45 AM Adventures of Robin Hood, The (1938) 1:45 PM Letter, The (1940) 3:30 PM Maltese Falcon, The (1941) 5:30 PM Fanny (1961)
The Big Five 8:00 PM It Happened One Night (1934) 10:00 PM One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 12:30 AM Silence Of The Lambs, The (1991)
Real Women 2:45 AM Frances (1982) 5:15 AM Silkwood (1983)
27 Sunday 8:00 AM Sister Kenny (1946) 10:30 AM I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955) 12:45 PM I Want To Live! (1958) 3:00 PM Sunrise At Campobello (1960) 5:30 PM Joan Of Arc (1948)
Notable No-Shows 8:00 PM Mildred Pierce (1945) 10:00 PM Annie Hall (1977) 12:00 AM Informer, The (1935) 2:00 AM Morning Glory (1933)
The Lion Roars 3:30 AM Smilin' Through (1932) 5:30 AM Broadway Melody Of 1936 (1935)
28 Monday 7:30 AM David Copperfield (1935) 9:45 AM Tale Of Two Cities, A (1935) 12:00 PM Citadel, The (1938) 2:00 PM Human Comedy, The (1943) 4:00 PM Test Pilot (1938) 6:00 PM Battleground (1949)
Nominations In A Bottle? 8:00 PM Arthur (1981) 10:00 PM Lost Weekend, The (1945) 12:00 AM Days of Wine and Roses (1962) 2:00 AM Under the Volcano (1984) 4:00 AM Dresser, The (1983)
1 Tuesday 6:15 AM Johnny Eager (1942) 8:15 AM Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Two By Four 10:30 AM Star Is Born, A (1937) 12:30 PM Star Is Born, A (1954) 3:30 PM Cyrano De Bergerac (1950) 5:30 PM Cyrano de Bergerac (1990)
Oscar Mosts 8:00 PM Emperor Waltz, The (1948) 10:00 PM All About Eve (1950) 12:30 AM Cabaret (1972) 2:45 AM Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) 4:45 AM Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)
The Most Honored Producer 2 Wednesday 6:45 AM Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) 9:00 AM Jezebel (1938) 11:00 AM All This, and Heaven Too (1940) 1:30 PM Captain Blood (1935) 3:45 PM Kings Row (1942) 6:15 PM Four Daughters (1938)
Gone But Not Forgotten 8:00 PM East Of Eden (1955) 10:00 PM Around The World In 80 Days (1956) 1:30 AM Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) 4:00 AM Obsession (1976)
3 Thursday 6:00 AM Great Caruso, The (1951) 8:00 AM Merry Widow, The (1952) 10:00 AM Way We Were, The (1973) 12:30 PM North By Northwest (1959) 3:00 PM Kind Lady (1951) 4:30 PM Strip, The (1951) 6:00 PM Shall We Dance (1937)
One And Done 8:00 PM Grand Hotel (1932) 10:00 PM Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) 12:30 AM Broadway Melody, The (1929)
Nominated For Playing A Nominee 2:15 AM Star, The (1952) 4:00 AM California Suite (1978)
I don't know about you, but I love Thanksgiving. Always have, always will. To me, it's like Christmas only better, an excuse to hang out with the people you love and eat obscene amounts of food without the hassle of buying more junk nobody needs.
But clearly that's just me.
Anyway, there aren't a lot of good Thanksgiving-related movies out there, but here are my picks as the five best:
Miracle On 34th Street (the 1947 version, please)—This is the one Katie-Bar-The-Door and I watch every year as we're sleeping off lunch. The charming story of how Santa Claus came to town and wound up on trial for his sanity, Miracle on 34th Street starts at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and is a great way to kick off the Christmas season (assuming that, like the Monkey, you refuse to acknowledge those decorations that have been up since Columbus Day).
Serve with warm pecan pie straight from the oven.
Hannah And Her Sisters (1986)—Woody Allen's surprisingly warm tale of three neurotic sisters and their equally neurotic love lives, bookended by sumptuous Thanksgiving celebrations straight out of a Martha Stewart wet dream. As a bonus, Woody learns life is worth living while watching the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup.
Serve with a nice Bordeaux aged in Anton Chekhov's wine cellar.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)—Roger Ebert's favorite Thanksgiving Day movie, it's a classic odd couple comedy from John Hughes, starring an uptight Steve Martin and the slovenly salt of the earth John Candy as two men desperately trying to get home for the holidays. "How do they know which way we're going?" Tart and funny with all the sugar backloaded to the last five minutes.
Serve with all the trimmings.
Home For The Holidays (1995)—My literary agent, Jill, thinks this is the best Thanksgiving movie ever. It's a comedy filled with hostility, anxiety, irrational grievances and all the unfulfilled familial expectations you could ever want. Not to mention someone gets a turkey dumped in their lap. In other words, it's a documentary of the typical American Thanksgiving dinner.
Serve with bile and battery acid.
The Ice Storm (1997)—Alcoholism, wife swapping, teenage sex—and the best Thanksgiving toast ever. If you grew up in a lunatic asylum or are simply nostalgic for the free-love Seventies, this is the movie for you. Stars Joan Allen and Kevin Kline (sans moustache, and you know what that means).
[To read previous entries in this essay, click 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Duck Soup: The Brothers At Their Best Let's just cut to the chase. If you've never seen Duck Soup, back away from the blog, turn off your computer and go find it—right now! It's available for instant streaming from Netflix, if you're set up for that, and you can always buy it here from amazon.com if you're not.
Because the fact is there are certain works of art so essential to the human experience that, love them or hate them, not to have experienced them at least once dooms you to a life of aimless wandering in the desert of cultural ignorance. Hamlet, the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's David. And if I had to choose just one Marx Brothers movie that meets the definition of essential, Duck Soup would be it.
Now, those of you who have been following this blog for a while know I'm not prone to dogmatic pronouncements. I'm a live and let live guy (in a live and let die world) and if you don't like the same movies I like, that's perfectly alright with me. There are no wrong answers, I always say, just movies you haven't seen yet.
So when I tell you in such uncertain terms that this is one of the movies you should see, well, you know I'm not kidding around. Go. See the movie. Then come back and read this post. We'll wait.
For everybody else, here's a quick reminder of why Duck Soup is so wonderful:
Duck Soup is the story of a nation in crisis: Freedonia's economy is in a shambles, it's treasury depleted, and only the largess of a wealthy benefactor, the rich widow Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) keeps the country afloat. Moreover, Freedonia's bellicose neighbor, Sylvania, is massing troops on the border, and with a month's rent already paid on the battlefield, war seems inevitable. The country teeters on the brink of anarchy.
Freedonia is desperate for a savior and riding to the rescue is that fearless man of the people, Rufus T. Firefly. A fighting progressive—or an iron-fisted dictator, depending on which news source you follow—Firefly takes office pledging broad reform.
"If you think this country's bad off now," he promises, "just wait 'til I get through with it!"
If this sounds like a cynical critique of every head of state since Pontius Pilate last washed his hands, it is. It's also the funniest. That Duck Soup seems as fresh now as it did when it first premiered seventy-seven years ago is a testament both to how well it was made and to how little human nature ever really changes.
The film features some of the funniest and most famous scenes in the Marx Brothers canon, especially the mirror scene, but also Chico's trial for treason, a running battle with the owner of a lemonade stand, and the wild finale where the besieged Brothers are rescued by, among other things, a school of dolphins. Many factors are responsible for Duck Soup's greatness: Leo McCarey's face-paced direction; the expert supporting work of Margaret Dumont, Edgar Kennedy and Louis Calhern; and a top-notch screenplay that despite contributions from many sources—not just credited writers Harry Ruby, Bert Kalmar, Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin, but also Grover Jones, Norman Krasna, Herman Mankiewicz, Leo McCarey and the Marx Brothers themselves—was the most cohesive and inventive of the Paramount era.
Above all, though, Duck Soup works thanks to the performances of Groucho, Chico and Harpo themselves. Groucho, of course, was already without peer in terms of comic timing, and his delivery could take jokes that on the printed page were pretty flat—asking Margaret Dumont to take a card, for example ("Keep it. I've got fifty-one left")—and turn them into brilliantly absurdist gems. But in Duck Soup, he also looks physically comfortable for the first time, no longer worried about hitting his mark (always a problem for him), inhabiting his character and commanding the screen like a seasoned movie actor instead of a transplanted theater performer.
Harpo's business is not quite as anarchic as in previous movies (personally, I think Animal Crackers is his best showcase), but it's tighter here, tying back into the plot. He's just as easily distracted as ever, but now, for example, when he tries to crack a safe and winds up breaking into a radio by mistake, there are consequences which lead directly to two of the movie's best moments—the mirror scene and Chico's trial for treason. And, to reiterate an earlier point, he for once has a nemesis (two, actually, in the persons of Edgar Kennedy and Louis Calhern) worthy of his antics.
As good as Groucho and Harpo are, though, the real surprise of the movie is Chico. I'm not suggesting Chico wasn't good in previous movies, but his role had been limited largely to malapropisms, piano solos and translating for the silent Harpo, a role Chico seemed content to play as long as he got his paycheck on time. In Duck Soup, however, entire sequences that have nothing to do with tormenting Groucho or supporting Harpo—the meeting with Louis Calhern, the peanut vendor scenes with Edgar Kennedy, the scene in Margaret Dumont's bedroom, and the trial for treason—are built around him and in these scenes, Chico showcased a comic talent the equal of his brothers.
In part, Chico's expanded role was an unexpected dividend of the Brothers' otherwise unsuccessful radio venture. Without Harpo and the piano to fall back on, the show's writers (Perrin and Sheekman) were forced to devise new ways to feature Chico and to beef up his role to equal Groucho's and many of these new sketches, including the "Shadow-day" business in Calhern's office and the trial scene late in the movie, wound up in the movie to Chico's benefit.
Leo McCarey was the other driving force behind Chico's more visible role. A veteran of the Hal Roach Studios, McCarey had his own comic sensibilities and the confidence to impose them on the Marx Brothers. He perceived that the perfect complement to their comedy of aggression was the comedy of the "slow-burn" reaction—what Houghton Mifflin defines as "a gradually increasing sense or show of anger"—perfected by such Hal Roach acts as Laurel and Hardy and W.C. Fields. To that end, he brought in veteran performers Edgar Kennedy and Louis Calhern, adapted bits from the silent era such as the three-hat gag to bring them to a slow boil, and let Chico and Harpo go to work on them.
I wish I could tell you Zeppo fared as well. 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.
Duck Soup premiered on November 17, 1933 to mixed reviews. The usually supportive Mourdant Hall of the New York Times called it "noisy" and not nearly as funny as previous efforts. Variety complained that the movie "could easily have been written by a six-year-old," but overall recommended the film. Everybody loved the mirror scene.
In terms of box office, Duck Soup wasn't quite the flop of legend, turning a profit, but nevertheless grossing less than any of its predecessors. In part, the movie was done in by Paramount's financial difficulties which left little money in the budget for promotion, but the Marx Brothers were also victims of bad timing—as Tim Dirks at The Greatest Films put it, "audiences were taken aback by such preposterous political disrespect, buffoonery and cynicism at a time of political and economic crisis, with Roosevelt's struggle against Depression in the US amidst the rising power of Hitler in Germany."
Of course, Duck Soup's reputation as a masterpiece is now secure, the sort of movie that—as Woody Allen posited in Hannah and Her Sisters—can give you a reason for living even on the worst of days. In 1990, the Library of Congress selected Duck Soup for preservation in the National Film Registry. Ten years later, the American Film Institute ranked it as the fifth best American comedy of all time. Personally, I rank it even higher than that.
Despite its status as an essential film classic, the experience of making Duck Soup was not a happy one. The Brothers and Leo McCarey did not enjoy working together—and indeed never worked together again. Chico and Harpo missed the piano and harp solos, and Zeppo was so miffed, he left the act permanently and never performed in another movie.
In addition, shortly after production began, the studio fired producer Herman J. Mankiewicz. Although he and Mankiewicz remained friends for life, Groucho was blunt in describing Mank's efforts as a producer, calling him "an irritating drunk who didn't give a hang about the movie project." (Apparently a typical day at the office would consist of napping, drinking and talking to his wife on the phone, and Mankiewicz only kept his job because Paramount executive B.P. Schulberg owed him large sums of money from their frequent poker games. When Paramount reorganized in 1933, Schulberg lost his job and Mankiewicz soon found himself on the curb.)
Mostly, though, the unhappiness on the set was a direct result of the Brothers' deteriorating relationship with the studio and soon after Duck Soup's premiere, the Marx Brothers and Paramount Pictures would permanently part company. For the first time in more than a decade the Brothers found themselves out of work and at a crossroads.
Trivia: When watching Hollywood films made between 1933 and 1935, you're likely to see the "NRA" logo before the opening credits. No, that's not an endorsement of the National Rifle Association, but instead refers to the National Recovery Administration. Part of Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" effort to lift the country from the depths of the Depression, the National Industrial Recovery Act allowed the NRA to negotiate with various industries on behalf of the federal government to establish codes of "fair competition," including a minimum wage for workers and collectively-agreed-upon prices for goods and services.
Participation was voluntary and those businesses which adhered to the negotiated fair competition codes displayed the NRA logo on their products. (Those that didn't participate often found themselves subject of a boycott.)
In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared the NRA an unconstitutional delegation of legislative powers to the executive branch. Although the National Recovery Administration ceased to operate, several of its basic concepts, including the minimum wage, were included in the National Labor Relations Act (a.k.a. the Wagner Act) passed later that same year.
[To continue to Part Eight, click here. To read more about Duck Soup, click here.]
And the current carries us farther yet from the essay for best director of 1930-31 ...
The ever reliable Wikipedia describes cognitive dissonance as that "uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously" and suggests that most people instinctively try to bring the two ideas into harmony by either changing their belief structure so the two ideas are no longer in conflict or rationalizing away one of the two ideas, again to reduce the conflict.
Yesterday's seemingly innocent picture of Errol Flynn inadvertently created a lot of cognitive dissonance when, between Douglas Fairbanks's dirty joking and my own curiosity, we discovered that Flynn's already shady past cast darker shadows than we here at the Monkey had imagined. Not just a "dashing ladies man who drank too much and tickled Basil Rathbone's ribs with the blade," as I put it on Thingy's blog, "Pondering Life," Flynn was a serial seducer of underage girls (tried in 1943 but acquitted on charges of raping two teenagers and engaged to marry a fifteen year old at the time of his death in 1959), as well as, at least on one documented occasion, an anti-Semitic blowhard.
One biographer has even charged he was a spy for Hitler's Germany (although others contend he was a leftist drinking buddy of Fidel Castro's and the British government a few years ago revealed that during the last days of World War II, Flynn was actually a spy for the British).
In any event, nasty business.
Which is a bit of a problem because I, for one, like Errol Flynn's movies, particularly The Adventures of Robin Hood. Am I required to like Errol Flynn as well or otherwise have to explain away his private behavior before I can admit to such? Or should I just stop watching his movies altogether?
The instinctive sense that I need to choose one of these options is cognitive dissonance.
There was an even bigger example of cognitive dissonance in the movie-fan blogosphere recently when Switzerland arrested Roman Polanski in advance of extraditing him to the United States to face sentencing following his 1978 guilty plea to unlawful sexual intercourse—a subject I hadn't planned to address in any fashion until my cryogenically-frozen head reaches 1974's Chinatown in this blog, sometime around the turn of the next century.
In my notes for the essay about the best director of 1974 (yes, I've made notes that far ahead— I've even written about Amy Adams's 2008 performance in Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day and Lord knows you'll be waiting forever before I get around to posting it), I have written: "Judgment of Polanski the man I leave to you, to God, to history, to Polanski's own withered conscience and to the appropriate legal authorities in any event. I certainly wouldn't want anything I've said about Polanski the artist to be construed as a defense of Polanski the man."
That's pretty much how I feel about Errol Flynn. And a lot of other people, too.
The farther I get into blogging about movies and their history, the clearer it becomes that the people who made great movies weren't necessarily great people, and certainly what you see on the screen doesn't reflect what you would have seen in their private lives. John Ford was an insufferable bastard, Henry Fonda was a terrible father, Woody Allen married his girlfriend's daughter. Dalton Trumbo was a Communist, Ward Bond hated Communists, Elia Kazan informed on his friends. Veronica Lake earned the nickname "the Bitch," Margaret Sullavan was a depressed alcoholic and Betty Hutton was as crazy as an outhouse rat. Clark Gable had bad breath and Joan Crawford's and Marilyn Monroe's legendary shortcomings I dare say you know about.
Renee Zellweger was reportedly so difficult on the set of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason that afterwards her co-stars Hugh Grant and Colin Firth announced their (thankfully short-lived) retirements from the movies. Jane Greer, on the other hand, was as sweet as chess pie, as loyal as a faithful dog and as brave as your average Marine, but that doesn't mean she wasn't absolutely riveting as the murderous femme fatale Kathy Moffit in the noir classic, Out of the Past.
There are any number of ways you can handle unpleasant information about the people who make movies. My father refused to watch Jane Fonda because of her politics; my mother-in-law still won't watch John Wayne because of his. Which is a pity from the point of view of the movie fan because it means you miss out on Klute and The Searchers, two great movies with two great performances that, I'll tip my hand now, will win their respective stars Katie Awards.
You can also go the other way and excuse behavior of your heroes you would never forgive of your enemies. Thus you'll find plenty of petitions seeking to free Roman Polanski despite committing a crime you'd insist your neighbor be buried for. Our brains are hard-wired that way, or so scientists tell us, something to remember the next you (or I) want to beat someone senseless for taking a position we don't agree with, but there's not much future for the republic if we're forever choosing to behave like territorial pack animals.
In writing this blog, I have opted for a third way. I have in the past and will continue in the future to distill out the professional from the personal, the on-screen persona from the private one, and though I have written about both, and will continue to do so, I've been choosing awards and reviewing movies strictly based on the former. Some of the winners have been creeps and some have been saints, but all of them have done something on screen that I think is worth your time and attention.
It's either that or stop writing about movies altogether. But then anything you write is guaranteed to offend somebody. After all, I imagine there are still some people out there who insist the world is flat. You can't please everybody.
So when 1938 rolls around, I will go ahead and lavish praise on The Adventures of Robin Hood and its star, Errol Flynn, no matter what he may or may not have done when he wasn't wearing green tights and a feather in his cap.
Katie nominee, singer/actor Maurice Chevalier, is 121 today, and given the frequency with which long-dead actors such as Lon Chaney and Douglas Fairbanks pop up in the comment section, he's no doubt still out there somewhere, partying like it's 1899.
I mention Chevalier because looking ahead I see it's unlikely I'll otherwise have occasion to write about him and I think that given most people only remember him now, if they remember him at all, for a rather creepy rendition of "Thank Heaven For Little Girls" in the 1958 Oscar winner Gigi, that would be a real disservice to a man who in his youth was really quite a remarkable talent.
Chevalier was born in Paris on this day in 1888 and by the age of thirteen was already a professional singer and acrobat. He was wounded in combat during World War I and taken prisoner by the Germans; during his two years in a POW camp, he learned English from his fellow prisoners and despite what you hear in the movies, actually spoke the language fluently and without an accent.
After the war, he worked on the stage in Paris and London, and yearned to tour America, but he turned down an offer from Douglas Fairbanks to work in silent movies, fearing he wasn't actor enough to succeed without benefit of his singing voice. He worked in France, occasionally making movies there, until the premiere of The Jazz Singer, then finally left for Hollywood.
He made his best movies with legendary director, Ernst Lubitsch, who starred Chevalier in four musical comedies, The Love Parade, One Hour With You and The Merry Widow with Jeanette MacDonald and The Smiling Lieutenant with Claudette Colbert and Miriam Hopkins. The movies are light, naughty sex comedies and very funny, with Chevalier invariably playing a randy army lieutenant who winds up chasing (and being chased by) a virginal member of royalty who is about to discover what she's been missing.
Jeanette MacDonald is more famous now for her pairings with Nelson Eddy, and I'll write about that Hollywood screen team at a later date, but frankly her pre-Code musicals with Chevalier are much more interesting. The two didn't get along very well, though, Chevalier calling MacDonald a "prude," and MacDonald calling Chevalier "the quickest derriere pincher in Hollywood," and despite making four successful pictures together (including Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight), the two went their separate ways.
Chevalier's Hollywood career suffered after censors began to enforce the Production Code and he returned to France in the late 1930s. After World War II, he was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and although acquitted, he was wasn't allowed to return to the U.S. until 1954. He worked in a dozen films after his return, including Love in the Afternoon and Gigi, and continued working until his death in 1972 at the age of eighty-three.
Personal Note: My own introduction to Maurice Chevalier came not from Gigi but from the movie Annie Hall during the scene where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are watching Marcel Ophuls documentary The Sorrow and the Pity. "Boy, those guys in the French Resistance were really brave," says Woody, "you know? Got to listen to Maurice Chevalier sing so much."
When it comes to answering the question "Who was the greatest comedic actor of the Silent Era," the debate rightly boils down to Charlie Chaplin versus Buster Keaton. As arguments go, it is to silent movies what "the Beatles or the Stones" was to music in the Sixties.
But just as there were other acts in the Sixties, there were other comedians in the Silent Era. Harold Lloyd, I suppose, would be to Chaplin and Keaton what The Who was to their better-known contemporaries, that is, not as celebrated but producing classic work that still holds up.
Although as far as I know, Harold Lloyd never smashed a guitar or drove a limousine into a swimming pool.
Okay, enough with the metaphors.
Chaplin had The Tramp, Keaton was The Great Stoneface. Lloyd's character was essentially a 75-cent pair of eyeglasses—without lenses—that turned a blandly handsome man into a nebbishy clerk or a naive rube or a clueless rich kid stumbling through a world he only thinks he understands. In fact, it's probably not an exaggeration to say that Lloyd's glasses were more famous than he was.
Lloyd's best movies are Safety Last!, The Kid Brother, Girl Shy and The Freshman. His comedy For Heaven's Sake was the twelfth highest grossing movie of the Silent Era.
The most unforgettable scene of his career comes from Safety Last! where Lloyd climbs the face of a high-rise building, hanging precariously at one point from the hands of a clock.
Lloyd performed the entire climb and stunt himself although he later said he had mattresses and scaffolding two or three stories below him in case he fell.
Although he has been called "The Third Genius," and his films outgrossed those of both Chaplin and Keaton, Roger Ebert contends, I think correctly, that Lloyd was "not a genius in their sense, creating comedy out of inspiration and instinct and an angle on the world."
Which is to say, you won't see the same inspired flights of lunacy you see in Chaplin and Keaton—the visitation by angels, including a flying dog with wings, as in Chaplin's The Kid; or Keaton's spirit leaving his body to climb into a movie screen as in Sherlock, Jr.
The set-ups in Lloyd are more conventional (the rented tuxedo falling apart during a dance, for example). Where Lloyd excels, and where he earns mention with those two giants of silent comedy, is in his execution of his set-ups—the tuxedo doesn't just fall apart, his tailor darts around the room with him, sewing it back together.
"Lloyd was an ordinary man," Walter Kerr wrote in The Silent Clowns, "like the rest of us: ungrotesque, uninspired. If he wanted to be a successful film comedian, he would have to learn how to be one, and learn the hard way."
Ebert summed up the differences between the three comics this way:
"Lloyd is a real man climbing a building; Keaton, as he stands just exactly where a building will not crush him, is an instrument of cosmic fate. And Chaplin is a visitor to our universe from the one that exists in his mind." Still, genius or not, Harold Lloyd inspired generations of actors who came after him. Cary Grant modeled his classic performance in Bringing Up Baby on Harold Lloyd's persona, which in turn was the basis for Tony Curtis's brilliant imitation of Grant in Some Like It Hot. And I wouldn't be the first person to note that Woody Allen drew in part on Lloyd in creating his own style (which is essentially Bob Hope in Harold Lloyd's body).
Lloyd was nominated for a Golden Globe late in his career, for the 1947 Preston Sturges comedy The Sin Of Harold Diddlebock (later edited and reissued as Mad Wednesday), and received an honorary Oscar in 1953. He died at the age of 78, living long enough to see a revival of interest in his career.
Turner Classic Movies' annual "31 Days Of Oscar" marathon starts tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Here's the schedule:
