Why a duck? Why a no chicken?
Interesting to look back to see where we were one hundred years ago.
George S. Kaufman and Irving Berlin's musical "The Cocoanuts" starring the Marx Brothers opens at the Lyric Theatre, NYC in 1925 and runs for 276 performances…Later, in 1929, at the beginning of the transition to sound in motion pictures, The Cocoanuts was filmed at Paramount Astoria studios in New York. The production was filmed during the day, while the brothers, at night, were performing their next big Broadway hit, Animal Crackers. Cameras for sound had to be enclosed in big boxes to hide their mechanical sounds, and therefore could not be mobile, so the production has a stagnant stage-like look to it. Also, the microphones were also new technology, and would pick up all manner of peripheral sounds. In the scenes where Groucho is showing Chico maps, you’ll notice how weirdly limp they (the maps) look. That’s because the tech people had to soak the maps in water so the mics wouldn’t pick up the crinkling sound of the paper…
In the cast is Kay Francis. She was about to become a big deal in Hollywood. Francis's career flourished at Paramount in spite of a slight, but distinctive rhotacism (she pronounced the letter "r" as "w") that gave rise to the nickname "Wavishing Kay Fwancis". She appeared in George Cukor's "thrillingly amoral comedy" Girls About Town (1931) and 24 Hours (1931). On December 16, 1931, Francis and her co-stars opened the newly constructed art deco Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California, with a gala preview screening of The False Madonna.
This film has some of the great moments in Marx comedy. Chico is especially aggressive with his lines (he just annoys the hell out of Groucho, foiling his plan to rig an auction with his denseness) and Harpo (with his original red wig, which films dark brown) has never been better, destroying the hotel lobby by eating buttons off bellboy's uniforms and swilling ink. Groucho has some of his most potent insults. Zeppo, surprisingly, has even less to do here than in subsequent outings.
This is as close as we’ll get, to see what all the Broadway fuss was about, regarding the Fabulous Four Marx Brothers one hundred years ago.
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