Duck Soup

Duck Soup is a 1933 Marx Brothers' anarchic comedy film written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Arthur Sheekman, and Nat Perrin and directed by Leo McCarey. It starred what were then billed as the "Four Marx Brothers" (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo) and also featured Margaret Dumont, Raquel Torres, and Louis Calhern.

Plot

In the film Groucho plays Rufus T. Firefly, the governor of the small country of Freedonia, who finds himself on the verge of war with the neighboring country of Sylvania.

Duck soup is a slang phrase meaning "a piece of cake", or something easy to do. The expression was in keeping with the "animal" theme of the brothers' previous three titles, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, and Horse Feathers. McCarey came up with the title for the film. When Groucho was asked for an explanation, he said:

Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life.

Reception

Popular belief holds that Duck Soup was a box office failure, but this is not true. Even though it did not do as well as Horse Feathers, it was the sixth-highest grossing film of 1933, according to Glenn Mitchell in The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia and Simon Louvish in his biography of the Marx Brothers, Monkey Business. The musical introduction to Groucho's character is similar to the ones in Animal Crackers and Horse Feathers, and audiences at the time may have seen it as a rehash, though modern audiences do not need to make this association. Although Groucho's opening number did not become connected with him closely as did the Animal Crackers numbers, its biting satire resonates:

The last man nearly ruined this place,

He didn't know what to do with it;

If you think this country's bad off now,

Just wait till I get through with it!

A possible reason for the film's bad reception might be because of the time frame in which it was released: right in the middle of the Depression of 1929-1939. Audiences were taken aback by such preposterous political disregard, buffoonery and cynicism at a time of political crisis. (This film quote, spoken by Groucho was especially detested: "And remember, while you're out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are!")

Years later, Arthur Marx, Groucho's son, described Irving Thalberg's assessment of the film's failure during a National Public Radio interview:

said the trouble with Duck Soup is you've got funny gags in it, but there's no story and there's nothing to root for. You can't root for the Marx Brothers because they're a bunch of zany kooks. [Thalberg says, "You gotta put a love story in your movie so there'll be something to root for, and you have to help the lovers get together."

The supposedly necessary love story, included in later Marx films, is often seen as an intrusion, and the early films are seen as being "pure" comedy. Duck Soup is now seen as a classic political farce. The film was #85 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies and #5 on its 100 Years, 100 Laughs, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. It is consistently on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Duck Soup the 29th greatest comedy film of all time.

Famous Scenes

The irrepresible comedians in this quintessential anarchy, satirical film simply but irreverently assault the pomposity of small-time governmental leaders (Firefly as President), the absurdity of government itself (the Cabinet meeting scene), governmental diplomacy (the Trentino-Firefly scenes), a non-working legal system (the trial scenes), and war fought for trivial reasons (the mobilization and war scenes).

The non-stop frenetic film is filled with a number of delightfully funny moments, gags, fast-moving acts, double entendres, comedy routines, puns, pure silliness, zany ad-libs, quips and insult-spewed lines of dialogue. Much of the comedy makes the obvious statement that war is indeed nonsensical and meaninglessly destructive. The film also ridicules the justifications for warfare: The two nations go to war solely because Firefly and Trentino had insulted each other.

In the "mirror scene," Harpo, dressed as Groucho, pretends to be Groucho's reflection in a missing mirror, matching and mocking his every move. Eventually, Chico, also disguised as Groucho, collides with both of them. This scene has been duplicated in many different films and genres. Harpo himself did a reprise of this scene, dressed in his usual costume, with Lucille Ball also donning the fright wig and trench coat, in an episode of I Love Lucy. In that version, Harpo breaks it up by dropping his hat; Lucy also drops her hat, but Harpo's is on a rubber band and springs back to him, and Lucy and Harpo embrace as the studio audience applauds.

In another famous scene the Marx Brothers poke fun at the Hays Code by showing a woman's bedroom and then showing a woman's shoes on the floor, a man's shoes and horseshoes. Harpo is sleeping in the bed with the horse; the woman is in the twin bed next to them.

The climactic production number ridicules war by comparing nationalism to a minstrel show. The irreverent satire still bites. One line is a variant on the old Spiritual "All God's Chillun Got Wings"^*:

We got guns, they got guns, all God's chillun got guns!

I'm gonna walk all over the battlefield, 'cause all God's chillun got guns!

The street vendor confrontations are also well-remembered scenes: Chico and Harpo harass a lemonade seller (Edgar Kennedy) just to get a "kick" out of it, egged on by his flustered attitude.

The typical Marxian anarchy found a receptive audience when the film was revived in the 1960s. The very end of the film finds Trentino caught in a makeshift stocks and the Brothers are pelting him with fruit. Margaret Dumont begins singing the Freedonia national anthem in her operatic voice. When she hits the high note, the Brothers turn away from Trentino and begin hurling fruit in her direction instead (although none of it actually hits her).

Musical numbers

When The Clock On The Wall Strikes 10
These are the Laws of My Administration
Stars and Stripes
Freedonia's Going To War
Military Polonaise
William Tell Overture
Ain't She Sweet
Goodnight, Sweetheart
One Hour With You
American Patrol
Light Cavalry
Freedonia hymn

Trivia

Duck Soup was the last film to feature the Four Marx Brothers. Zeppo Marx departed the act after the film was completed.
Breaking with their usual pattern, neither Harpo's harp nor Chico's piano is used in the film, although Harpo briefly pretends to play harp on the strings of a piano, strumming chords in accompaniment to a music box that is playing the unlikely chime tune, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" (from a rival studio's Three Little Pigs, released the same year as Duck Soup).
The film was banned in the Italy of Benito Mussolini, who took it as a personal insult. The brothers were reportedly ecstatic when this happened.
In the battle scenes, Firefly is dressed in several uniforms. He wears a different costume in almost every sequence until the end of the film, including an American Civil War outfit, various uniforms from the American Revolutionary War, a Boy Scout Scoutmaster's uniform, and even a coon-skin Davy Crockett cap. Meanwhile, the exterior view of the building they are occupying changes appearance from a bunker to an old fort, etc. Some analysts say that all the war costumes suggest that the scene symbolizes all American wars. As the Boy Scouts have never formally engaged in war, it is more likely that the writers were merely trying to get laughs.
Scenes from Duck Soup play a significant role in a scene near the end of the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters.
When the film was first released, the city of Fredonia, New York, complained about the possible negative implications the film could reflect on the city. The Marx Brothers replied, in typical Marx fashion, "Change the name of your town: You're hurting our picture." (Groucho would use the same idea in defending the title of A Night in Casablanca).
The script was originally titled Firecrackers.
Bananas, written and directed by Woody Allen, was loosely modelled after Duck Soup.

External links

Review and scene-by-scene description from a film buff whose ad-supported website is recommended by Roger Ebert
Credit summary with "Four Marx Brothers" poster from a University of Illinois at Chicago website
Present at the Creation, an NPR story about the failure of Duck Soup and the success of the film that followed
Duck Soup script from a fan's website
Freedonia tourist site created by a fan, loosely based on the world of the film