Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)

The feeling that comes through most palpably watching Duck Soup in 2024 is the desperation of the vaudeville circuit from whence the Marx Brothers act hailed, the go-for-the-jugular imperative to do something, anything to stay on stage and curry the audience's favor. If the jokes are falling flat, then do a dance. If the dancing won't sustain, then sing a song. If the song is a dud, then do some acrobatics or a magic trick or try another joke. And above all, remember - sing out, Louise! You can see this process in the Vitaphone shorts, early sound films capturing vaudeville greats just as film sound technology was beginning to torpedo vaudeville as a national pastime. Check out the Foy Family in Chips of the Old Block (1928) where in less than eight minutes the famous Seven Foys (down one here although the act had already split up by this point, reuniting only for the film record) sing songs, wear goofy costumes, tell jokes, recite a gruesome fairy tale, perform pratfalls, and hoof it like the rent was due yesterday. And in typical vaudeville fashion, there's no glue holding the activities together; they simply present their trades in an array they hope will tantalize. One brother pretends to choke on his fake teeth and once the other brothers slap it out of him, oh now I guess they're dancing again.

Certainly Duck Soup tells a story to link together the comedic spectacles. But it's the desperate energy of those spectacles that powers the film. The Brothers are constantly mugging, even directly addressing us at times to make sure we're loving it. Everything is a bit even if it may push the narrative forward. Obviously, this is the job of any comedian; witness the relentless quest for laughs in the hilarious new HBO Max series Conan O'Brien Must Go. But it's the buffet-style, take-no-prisoners nature of vaudeville that shines through here. As such, Duck Soup feels strikingly modern today. It's over-amped, nerve-wrecked, anarchic, loud, distracted, violent, all the things classical Hollywood cinema is supposed to lack according to viewers who couldn't stomach the black-and-white cinematography of Netflix's Ripley. 

And perhaps the Brothers were savvy in hitting hard and fast. They were lucky enough to survive as a team (minus Zeppo after Duck Soup) into the 1940s when few vaudeville acts ever made it beyond a Vitaphone short. But their imperative is our blessing. Duck Soup is the Marx brothers' finest film, a noise symphony comprised of untranslatable puns, vicious parodies of patriotic anthems, battle sequences making warmongers look as idiotic and reckless as they are, Harpo dangerous with a huge pair of scissors, and the incomparable mirror scene featuring three Grouchos. All that and it's over in is-that-even-feature-length 68 minutes.

Grade: A