Diary of a Schizophrenic

A madman's diary.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Duck Soup

Rather nice on a rewatch. Some quite nice vitriolic shots at governments and administration. The song and dance routines are quite good. A lot of the verbal jokes from Groucho are rather hit and miss, though. My favourite is that he gets mad at being called an "upstart" but not "swine". Harpo is seemingly lifting the slapstick off the "Three Stooges", though. At least one racist joke about "darkies" although it's really not that racist if you look at it.

Animal Crackers

My least favourite of the three, although the interludes when Groucho is talking to himself is highly influential on comedies that came afterwards. The central lost painting crux is just not that interesting. More interesting is the part where Zeppo sits in for Groucho, and the voice is dissimilar and they had to shot that part in near darkness.

Horse Feathers

Rather interesting take on the education system. Pretty good harp solo from Harpo as well. The climactic football game is madness and has to be seen to be believed. More hit and miss jokes as well.

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