{"id":29071,"date":"2025-12-31T00:17:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=29071"},"modified":"2025-12-31T00:17:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:17:22","slug":"film-duck-soup-1933","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=29071","title":{"rendered":"FiLM: Duck Soup, 1933"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
When the poster is better than the movie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More Turkey than Duck<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We recently watched this, on Amazon Prime, paying \u00a33.50 for the privilege. I felt robbed. I thought it might be worth watching, chiefly on account of believing Woody Allen is or was a fan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wikipedia page on the film notes that it was a bit of a disappointment at the time, commercially, and opened to mixed reviews. But, apparently, it has subsequently been reevaluated: \u2018Duck Soup is now widely considered to be a masterpiece of comedy and the Marx Brothers’ finest film.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Really!? I\u2019m quite surprised. At just over an hour, it\u2019s quite short. It\u2019s certainly very slight. But it doesn\u2019t feel short. There are segments – dreadful segments – where it decides it\u2019s a musical, and others where it\u2019s just a plain ol\u2019 hokey talkie movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groucho.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have to confess that I found it awfully boring. Very rarely even remotely funny. And mostly just annoyingly dated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It really hasn\u2019t aged well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently Groucho himself said, regarding the \u2018significance\u2019 of it\u2019s alleged political satire; \u2018What significance? We were just four Jews trying to get a laugh.\u2019 That\u2019s how it looks to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has always struck me that the best of Laurel & Hardy are the skits; attempts to \u2018long-form\u2019 their comedy into full-length films mostly come out turgid. Partly this is due to the dilution of their comedy with filler material, poor supporting acting, and the perceived need to embed the zaniness into some kind of coherent plot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think all of the above are happening here. And the sense of being very underwhelmed and disappointed reminds me of reading Voltaire\u2019s Candide<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four Marx Brothers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are some good lines. Groucho, unsurprisingly, getting practically all of them. But his relentless schtick grows wearisome. And there are even some funny physical clowning bits, mostly for Harpo. Zeppo\u2019s straight-man role, as Rufus T Firefly\u2019s hapless adjutant, is such that it feels like a Marx Bros trio circus outing, with Groucho, Harpo and Chico as the clowns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How this has ever made any lists of the \u2018top 100\u2019 or \u2018best ever\u2019 bewilders me. I note that Peter Sellers nicked a few gags: for example, he has Inspector Clouseau repeat the \u2018cracking the safe\/radio\u2019 scene, for example. Ironically I prefer his version of the joke. I think it\u2019s much better executed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hitchcock coined the rather splendid term McGuffin, as a suitably intriguing yet clearly contemptuous name for the \u2018engine\u2019 of a film\u2019s plot. The \u2018plot-driver\u2019 here, with Groucho as the aforementioned leader of Fredonia (Rutles P. Wildebeest, or summat), going to war with neighbouring Sylvania, doesn\u2019t seem to me worthy of the slightest attention. After all, that\u2019s what the makers of the movie accord it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plot? What plot\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all so silly and nonsensical it seems far more a vehicle for wisecracking and buffoonery than even the remotest attempt at meaningful satire. Released in 1933, when America was deep in recession and depression, and with fascism running rampant around the globe, it looks to me much more like escapist fluff than satire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rarely has a film I\u2019d hoped to enjoy dragged so slowly, despite being so short, that I\u2019ve abandoned it. Well, I bailed out of Duck Soup<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(And this despite the fact we were actually eating duck soup that very same evening!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More Turkey than Duck We recently watched this, on Amazon Prime, paying \u00a33.50 for the privilege. I felt robbed. I thought it might be worth watching, chiefly on account of believing Woody Allen is or was a fan.  The Wikipedia page on the film notes that it was a bit of a disappointment at the … <\/p>\n

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