Duck Soup (1933)

Film: Duck Soup

Director: Leo McCarey

Country: USA

Released: November 1933

Runtime: 68 minutes

Genre: Comedy

Studio: Paramount

Influenced: Monty Python, Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson

After the golden era of silent film comedy died, the most notable comedy of the 1930s was Duck Soup, starring all four Marx Brothers (for the last time) and a fine example of Pre-Code Hollywood, before censorship standards clamped down on depictions of sex, drugs and "deviant" lifestyles. It's hard to describe the movie very easily, given its strange mix of comedy, politics and surrealism, but in essence it's a satire of nationalism and war. Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby's screenplay is top notch, and legendary producer Herman J Mankiewicz gives the film its polish.

From Groucho's legendary mirror scene to Chico and Harpo's spy costumes and general shenanigans, Duck Soup is a non-stop sequence of hilarious comic sketches, making it feel like a longer film than its slightly more than 1 hour runtime because of how densely packed the material is. A particular favourite scene of mine is Chico and Harpo's confrontation with the lemonade seller.

Duck Soup's plot is absurdly silly. In the Ruritanian state of Freedonia, where war is constantly on the cards with neighbour Sylvania, everything has gone to the dogs and the coffers are empty, so the country must accept a US$20mn dollar loan from wealthy American widow Mrs Teasdale (played in typical deadpan fashion by Margaret Dumont), just as long as they install as president her friend, Rufus T Firefly, a Don Quixote-esque visionary and fool played by Groucho Marx.

Throughout, The Marx Brothers' comedy is rooted in a deep cynicism about the nature of political power and the legitimacy of the ruling class, and feels weirdly prescient given that WW2 would break out just a decade or so after this film. But to focus too much on the politics of this film is to do it a disservice; at the end of the day it's just really, really funny.