Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to a brand new episode of
Speaker 1: Second Take Cinema, coming at you from the Glorious Impala
Speaker 1: Film's headquarters in sunny South End on Sea. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jamie Evans, joined as always by mister Rory Jocelyn. Yes,
Speaker 1: and today we are going back to the oldest film
Speaker 1: we have ever reviewed on this show. It's a second
Speaker 1: take on nineteen thirty's Animal Crackers. Animal Crackers is a
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty American pre code comedy movie starring the Marx Brothers.
Speaker 1: Directed by Victor Human. It is based on the nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight musical Animal Crackers by George S. Kaufman and
Speaker 1: Maury Reiskind, which also starred the Marx Brothers and Margaret Dumont.
Speaker 1: This is the second feature film of the Marx Brothers,
Speaker 1: the previous one being The Coconuts. Coconuts, it says on here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it's spelt weird, but it is it's stylized.
Speaker 1: I don't know it is coconuts. Yeah, sorry, I'm misread. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cow nuts on Rotten Tomorrow's. The movie has a ninety
Speaker 1: seven and the initial response according to Wikipedia. The film
Speaker 1: was critically praised on its original release, with critic Mordaunt
Speaker 1: Hall of The New York Times giving it a positive review,
Speaker 1: describing it as a further example of amusing nonsense. This
Speaker 1: mad affair suits the principles, and its absurdities brought forth
Speaker 1: gales of laughter yesterday afternoon. He added the caveat that
Speaker 1: it is, however, the sort of thing that will only
Speaker 1: appeal to those who revel in the work of these
Speaker 1: four brothers. Martin Dickstein of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle agreed,
Speaker 1: calling it an improvement on The Coconuts in which the
Speaker 1: brothers managed to reach the topmost heights of lunacy, concluding
Speaker 1: it was just about the surest cure for the blues
Speaker 1: that could ever be prescribed. Animal Crackers also received positive
Speaker 1: coverage from trade publications. The Film Daily compared it favorably
Speaker 1: to The Coconuts, writing the four Marx brothers are back
Speaker 1: in the Talkers, this time doing better than in their first.
Speaker 1: Noting that there was not much plot, they observed that
Speaker 1: whilst most of the partey is nonsense, it gets the
Speaker 1: laughs and that's what counts. The Film Spectator gave a
Speaker 1: dissenting negative review, writing I'm sorry I saw it. Sam
Speaker 1: Silverman in Variety offered a favorable review, commenting on its
Speaker 1: financial success and implications for the film industry in adapting
Speaker 1: stage comedy to the screen. Perhaps a little trade stuff
Speaker 1: here might serve better than a waste of words to
Speaker 1: tell about a Doe film that's already in.
Speaker 2: It a Doe film. Maybe they had more relevance because
Speaker 2: there was quite a few things in the film and
Speaker 2: I think probably will have then come up in reviews
Speaker 2: where they'd be referring to vaudeville, because Vaudeville would have
Speaker 2: been huge at the time, and obviously that's where the
Speaker 2: Marx Brothers came from and what they were known for.
Speaker 1: He predicted that the public would stop going to see
Speaker 1: touring stage shows, opting instead to wait for the release
Speaker 1: of the film.
Speaker 2: Well other than musical is He's not wrong?
Speaker 1: No, giving paramount extreme credit for reproducing animal Crackers intact
Speaker 1: from the stage. That is of such benefit. It asks
Speaker 1: why animal Crackers on stage at five dollars fifty when
Speaker 1: even the rawer lights No, they will see it later
Speaker 1: on the screen for fifty or seventy five cents. Critics
Speaker 1: and filmmakers recognized the film's significance in the decades following
Speaker 1: its initial release. In his nineteen fifty four review, French
Speaker 1: New Wave director Francois Truffaux called the Marx Brothers the
Speaker 1: greatest American comedians of the pre war decade, ranking Animal
Speaker 1: Crackers alongside A Night at the Opera as their best work.
Speaker 1: Truffaux further noted that the film had enduring appeal, writing
Speaker 1: that one laughs with this movie as much as one
Speaker 1: did twenty years ago. The nineteen seventy four re release
Speaker 1: of Animal Crackers also prompted critics to reassess the film.
Speaker 1: In a review for the Los Angeles Free Press, critic
Speaker 1: Dick Locked wrote, with a Marx Brothers movie, success becomes
Speaker 1: largely a matter of routines, and Animal Crackers provide some
Speaker 1: of their best. David Sterritt of the Christian Science Monitor
Speaker 1: noted that even though the film's production was dated, animal
Speaker 1: Crackers is a peach. John J. O'Connor's review in The
Speaker 1: New York Times from the nineteen seventy nine CBS television
Speaker 1: broadcast described the Marx Brothers' routines as uneven, but still
Speaker 1: found them funny. At one point, Groucho turns towards the
Speaker 1: camera and explains all the jokes can't be good. You've
Speaker 1: got to expect that once in a while. In Animal Crackers, however,
Speaker 1: the good ones are very very good. The film continues
Speaker 1: to receive plaudits from reviewers and filmmakers, with director Jim
Speaker 1: Jarmush listing the Marx Brothers in an article describing his
Speaker 1: guilty pleasures, specifically citing Animal Crackers. Actor and director Stanley
Speaker 1: Tucci featured the film in a curated selection of work
Speaker 1: for Time magazine, calling it one of the greatest movies
Speaker 1: ever made. Comedian and actor Keegan Michael Key cited The
Speaker 1: Marx Brothers as an influence on his work, expressing his
Speaker 1: preference for Animal Crackers over Duck Soup Man.
Speaker 2: I love Keegan Michael Key as Jamie Knows, I love
Speaker 2: Keep Peel the Sketch Show, and there's quite a bit
Speaker 2: of it. It's very different, but there's quite a bit
Speaker 2: of it where there's a lot of wordplay that would
Speaker 2: then connect to the Marx Brothers and Grat Show in particular,
Speaker 2: but also Chico somewhat. And then there's also quite a
Speaker 2: little bit of slapstick that would be very similar to Harpo.
Speaker 2: So I can see the influence in the work of
Speaker 2: Key and Peele, and also specifically in the work of
Speaker 2: Keegan Michael Key, because he's obviously done stuff outside of
Speaker 2: Kean Peele being in multiple films. There's one. There's what
Speaker 2: he's did with John Cena, which I haven't watched yet,
Speaker 2: but I've seen the outtake where he's crying and it
Speaker 2: keeps making John Cena corpse right. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've seen that, but it's hilarious. It's just the way
Speaker 2: he goes full at it at the crag, but it's
Speaker 2: like it's comedy craying, so you're just like ah, and
Speaker 2: it's like the way he's going at it, just John
Speaker 2: Cena can't code.
Speaker 1: I saw when he did the comedy speech with President Obama. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was quite fun. Yeah. So Rory, you added Animal
Speaker 1: Crackers through the list of movies that needed a second take.
Speaker 1: So why don't you tell the audience a little bit
Speaker 1: about your earliest memory of Animal Crackers.
Speaker 2: So I do not know when I first watched this film,
Speaker 2: because I've been watching it since I was probably about
Speaker 2: two years old, maybe earlier, so I won't have any
Speaker 2: memory of that. I grew up with the Marx Brothers.
Speaker 2: My dad was a big fan of Marx Brothers and
Speaker 2: as such it became kind of a regular staple in
Speaker 2: my house. Sorry, Jamie just put his glasses on upside
Speaker 2: down to prove that he is a wacky boy as well,
Speaker 2: but basically, yeah, my dad would always put it on.
Speaker 2: All the various Marx Brothers films, I've seen almost all
Speaker 2: of them. I've seen all of the ones that they're
Speaker 2: together in. There's a couple that there's one I think
Speaker 2: I've not seen yet, which is Groucho Marx a girl
Speaker 2: in every port. That's the only one I've not seen.
Speaker 2: That's just him on his own though from nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 2: But all the others I've seen, and I've seen lots
Speaker 2: of documentary films and stuff about the Marx Brothers. I'm
Speaker 2: fascinated by them. And as Jamie may Or may not
Speaker 2: pull about, and certainly is evident in our sister show VGMP,
Speaker 2: a lot of the pun work, a lot of wordplay,
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, me being an annoying bastard
Speaker 2: comes from youth spent imitating and admiring the Marx Brothers work.
Speaker 2: So as far as Animal Crackers is concerned, specifically, I
Speaker 2: don't know when I first watched it. I've always enjoyed
Speaker 2: this film. I hadn't. It's the first one of their
Speaker 2: films that I've watched from a young age. Coconuts I
Speaker 2: only really saw when I was older, and it isn't
Speaker 2: as good. And the main issue with using Coconuts first,
Speaker 2: because Coconuts has I'll say one thing for Coconuts the
Speaker 2: makeup is really stage to the point where when you're
Speaker 2: watching it you're like, everyone looks like way too made up.
Speaker 2: The women's faces are like super white where they've got
Speaker 2: like thick white stage makeup on and then like really
Speaker 2: dark eyebrows and stuff drawn on, because that's how you'd
Speaker 2: need to see them from the back of a theater.
Speaker 2: Because they've got close ups and stuff in the movie,
Speaker 2: you're like, yeah, you could have, yeah, dial that ship back.
Speaker 2: In this they have dialed it back, so everything looks
Speaker 2: a little bit more naturalistic. But also the other problem
Speaker 2: with the Coconuts and the reason I didn't start with it,
Speaker 2: A hadn't watched it from a very young age, and
Speaker 2: B the sound quality is the worst thing in the Coconuts.
Speaker 2: It's quite muffled, even on the blu ray right and
Speaker 2: it's it's because it's because of decay. I'm fairly certain
Speaker 2: it's either because of early mic recordings not being that great,
Speaker 2: or it might be decay or a mixture of the two.
Speaker 2: Because we are talking about some of the earliest talkies.
Speaker 2: Animal Crackers has in comparison, relatively clear sound, as well
Speaker 2: as the you know, some interesting visuals which we'll get to.
Speaker 1: Did they ever do any silent films, the Marx Brothers.
Speaker 2: Or were they they were talkies? Only the only one
Speaker 2: really that would have worked in silent is Harpo, The
Speaker 2: you know, Groucho is all about quick, witten, sharp, you know,
Speaker 2: attacking conversation. Yeah, And the main thing with Chico is
Speaker 2: that he's so dumb. He can confuse Graucho by being
Speaker 2: too dumb for the wordplay to work, whereas I can't
Speaker 2: really do maybe.
Speaker 1: Our Chico at Heart. But a lot of this word
Speaker 1: plate doesn't work. A lot of it's really forced.
Speaker 2: A couple of bits are forced, like mouse and Yes,
Speaker 2: there are there are some jokes that are forced, but
Speaker 2: there are some that are really good.
Speaker 1: I guess Mouse and Moose works if you have a
Speaker 1: Scottish accent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but doesn't Chico doesn't. Notch Gracho Gratcho doesn't.
Speaker 1: I'm the one who's been drinking all day.
Speaker 2: Wrong. Yeah, this is my favorite fucking comedy trio. And
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be all right driving home?
Speaker 2: No? But yeah, So I added this because I I
Speaker 2: the premise of stc Is. I wanted to, you know,
Speaker 2: have a look at various different stuff I've I've brought
Speaker 2: in a couple of other comedies before that are more
Speaker 2: modern but of a similar style, like Airplane, which has
Speaker 2: a lot of word play and stuff like that, but
Speaker 2: is obviously a lot more modern than this. And this
Speaker 2: is very much my jam when it comes to comedy. However,
Speaker 2: as we discovered with Airplane, this type of comedy isn't
Speaker 2: so much your jam.
Speaker 1: So can you believe we're only a few years away,
Speaker 1: four years away from this being one hundred years old.
Speaker 2: It's nearly hit its centenary. And you know what, for me,
Speaker 2: not this film as much, but a lot of this
Speaker 2: still works. There is quite a bit of it that's aged.
Speaker 2: And I don't just mean in the fact that it's
Speaker 2: black and white, but there are certain jokes that rely
Speaker 2: on you knowing either the sensibilities of the era some
Speaker 2: of the jokes require that, and some of the other
Speaker 2: jokes require you to know, and some of these I
Speaker 2: don't even I still don't get require you to know
Speaker 2: about people of the era. There was one joke that
Speaker 2: I even looked up and even Google was like, I
Speaker 2: don't fucking know where.
Speaker 1: I fucking about. You don't know, I don't know, babe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one where Chico there's a aracter called Roscoe
Speaker 2: and he goes this. He says, I think I see
Speaker 2: you somewhere before he goes, well, the papers will run
Speaker 2: my photo and he goes, oh, you're Abe Cabibble and
Speaker 2: he goes, I'm not decabilians. Well, if not Abe Cabibel,
Speaker 2: who are you? I don't know who Abe Cabibble is.
Speaker 2: So I looked it up and Google was just like,
Speaker 2: what the closest I got was Adiola Caboli or something,
Speaker 2: and he was an American baseball star but he was
Speaker 2: like twenty no, sorry was he was a baseball star
Speaker 2: from three years after this film was made. And he's
Speaker 2: still not Abe Cabibel.
Speaker 1: So let's see if Google can help us. Now, Hey, Google,
Speaker 1: who was Abe Cabible? So Abe Cabible? So he's fictional oh.
Speaker 1: Abe Cabibble was the main character in the popular early
Speaker 1: American comic strip Abe the Agent.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, that might explain the Abe the Fishman joke,
Speaker 2: then that they say afterwards.
Speaker 1: He's inspired by the Yiddish slang phrase ish cabible, which
Speaker 1: means I don't care or so what. The phrase itself,
Speaker 1: popularized in the nineteen tens, led to the comic strip
Speaker 1: and later to the stage name of musician Merwyn Bogue,
Speaker 1: who went by Ish Kabibl in k Kaiser's band, making
Speaker 1: the name widespread.
Speaker 2: But that had explained why. He then says, the papers
Speaker 2: will run my picture, and he goes, you don't look
Speaker 2: like Abe Kabibbel because it's a comic strip. And then
Speaker 2: when he calls him Abe the Fishman, that he says,
Speaker 2: you look like But then he says he was the fishman.
Speaker 2: So maybe he was a phishmonger or a fishman, but
Speaker 2: maybe he wasn't called Abe and the aby bit was
Speaker 2: taken from the Abe Kabibble I think so. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: interesting though, So.
Speaker 1: In terms of my own experience with the Marx Brothers,
Speaker 1: I was pretty much only aware of them from pop
Speaker 1: culture references and not from the best of Saucers, largely
Speaker 1: from interviews with Alice Cooper where he talks about his
Speaker 1: friendship with Grouchow and from the movie The Devil's Rejects
Speaker 1: that we will be covering later on. This season of
Speaker 1: the show has a weird gimmick. I guess rob Zombie
Speaker 1: liked The Marx Brothers. Where the serial killers in that
Speaker 1: film keep using names from the Marx Brothers.
Speaker 2: Well, the main one is called Captain, the clown is
Speaker 2: called Captain. Is the name of Groucho in this film?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So you have Otis be Driftwood.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's from Duck Soup.
Speaker 1: Captain's boulding from this one. Yep. You have RJ Flywheel.
Speaker 2: That was a radio drama, a radio comedy show that
Speaker 2: he did. R J Flywheel wasn't in the films. That's
Speaker 2: a that's a deep cut for robs On begs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have his baby Firefly. Is that from them
Speaker 1: or the Firefly family in general? Is that from the Yeah?
Speaker 2: So he was, Yeah, his name was Firefly in that
Speaker 2: was in Duck Soup as well. Yeah. Yeah, rufous T
Speaker 2: Firefly was his name in Duck Soup.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a rufous T fight yeah. So other than
Speaker 1: those pop culture references, the only other experience I had
Speaker 1: with the Marx Brothers is you showed me duck Soup
Speaker 1: one time, yes, and.
Speaker 2: I thought you'd find it funny for it.
Speaker 1: And you said, hey, let's try Animal Crackers, so fair play. Well.
Speaker 2: I was going to suggest duck Soup again, but because
Speaker 2: we both watched it, but I remember you didn't like it,
Speaker 2: so I thought i'd try something else. Realistically, thinking back,
Speaker 2: I should have gone with Night at the Opera simply
Speaker 2: because Night of the Opera follows the three act structure
Speaker 2: a lot better and is considered by some to be
Speaker 2: their best movie. Generally, people like either Duck. Usually, if
Speaker 2: a Marx Brother's favorite is either Duck Soup or Night
Speaker 2: at the Opera, Duck Soup is better if you prefer
Speaker 2: the chaotic nature of the Marx Brothers. Night of the
Speaker 2: Opera is better if you prefer that chaos to be
Speaker 2: trapped into a storyline that is a lot more refined.
Speaker 2: It plays like a proper movie, whereas all of like
Speaker 2: Duck Soup and certainly Animal Crackers, plays like there's a
Speaker 2: play going on, but the Marx Brothers are basically injecting
Speaker 2: themselves and destroying it. So it's a very different vibe.
Speaker 2: One is way more wild, one is almost controlled chaos.
Speaker 1: I was happy to watch it though, because I like
Speaker 1: studying the history of film. This is the second oldest
Speaker 1: movie I've ever seen, not counting so I'm talking there
Speaker 1: about actual like feature movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Obviously I've seen some of the very early film stuff
Speaker 1: where it's like a minute long and it's like the
Speaker 1: first thing that was ever shot on a camera type thing.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the famous staircase sequence from Battleship for
Speaker 1: Tempkin as well, which is where continuity editing was like invented.
Speaker 2: Wow. No, I haven't seen that one myself, So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a Russian film. Ye. But now the oldest
Speaker 1: feature I have ever seen predates this by a decade.
Speaker 1: It is nineteen twenty's The Cabinet of Doctor Kaligari, Wow,
Speaker 1: which is a German expressionist film. It is the one
Speaker 1: you are you familiar with Robert Zombies Living Dead Girl
Speaker 1: music video.
Speaker 2: Yes, that music video is based.
Speaker 1: On the Cabinet of Dr Calgary. It's very very tim
Speaker 1: Burtonish now obviously.
Speaker 2: Very Asian.
Speaker 1: Dr Kaligary is, but it's.
Speaker 2: It's surprising that he hasn't remade it, but maybe he
Speaker 2: doesn't want to.
Speaker 1: I think he tried at one point and then couldn't.
Speaker 1: Someone else got the rights and made a version that's
Speaker 1: apparently terrible, and everyone's just kind of protect agreed to
Speaker 1: pretend it doesn't exist. But it's the sets are very stagy,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of they're not attempting to make them
Speaker 1: look real, Like all of the trees are really like zig.
Speaker 2: Zaggy, and yeah, that's it's stylized more than it is naturalist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this is definitely the oldest comedy movie I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. Before this, probably the oldest I've ever seen
Speaker 1: was probably some.
Speaker 2: Like It Hot, So yeah, it would be the general
Speaker 2: with Buster Keaton is the oldest comedy movie I've seen.
Speaker 2: That's a really good film, but that is a silent film,
Speaker 2: whereas this is not. And I've also seen Metropolis, which
Speaker 2: older than this, but that's not a comedy. And I've
Speaker 2: also seen the original Sferratu, which is older than this,
Speaker 2: but is also again not a comedy.
Speaker 1: Metropolis is the same year as this, and next nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: In Metropolis No.
Speaker 2: Nineteen twenty eight, I think, oh, Wow. Yeah, Metropolis is
Speaker 2: still in the twenties and it was one of the
Speaker 2: most expensive films ever made at the time. I've also
Speaker 2: seen the two thousand and one anime remake by the
Speaker 2: guy who did a Kira and actually, you know what,
Speaker 2: it's not the same film really, It's got a lot
Speaker 2: of the same premise. But the two thousand one Metropolis
Speaker 2: is actually a pretty down good time.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually I have actually have praise for that. One
Speaker 2: of the things that I do have praised for it
Speaker 2: as well is the soundtrack, but we'll get to that
Speaker 2: when we cover it, if we ever cover it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to say, usually remakes you're like, what
Speaker 2: the hell, But actually anime Metropolis is actually quite good.
Speaker 1: Okay, fantastic so on too, animal Crackers, And the first
Speaker 1: few things that jump out at me is, obviously, if
Speaker 1: you're going to go back and watch this movie as
Speaker 1: a model on it, she's gotta be prepared for the
Speaker 1: ways in which it is aged. Obviously it's all in
Speaker 1: black and white. The sound also has a little bit
Speaker 1: of an shoe not in the same way that it
Speaker 1: sounds like the coconuts hand where it's really muffled. That
Speaker 1: sounds not great. This has a thing that you get
Speaker 1: with a lot of these early studio pictures, which is
Speaker 1: when they're on the bigger sets, there is a bit
Speaker 1: of echo because the mics are not nearly close enough
Speaker 1: to the actors not to eliminate that, because they used
Speaker 1: to do it stage style where the mics were in
Speaker 1: the ceiling and they're just picking them up from that distance.
Speaker 2: The other thing as well is there's not many close ups.
Speaker 2: We're used to close ups in films, and it actually
Speaker 2: looks really weird to watch a film without close ups now,
Speaker 2: because you're like, well, of course I want to get
Speaker 2: and the benefit of the closeups is you could then
Speaker 2: get the micing close. Yeah, but they because it's all
Speaker 2: kind of mid shots on massive sets. As you say,
Speaker 2: the microphones are miles away.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And as we've alluded to already, this isn't really
Speaker 1: written in a way that a modern audience we're very,
Speaker 1: very familiar with three acts structure. Now. This feels more like,
Speaker 1: as you say, a vaudeville show that has a very
Speaker 1: loose plot put in it to a point where there
Speaker 1: are multiple times For those who don't know, because I
Speaker 1: don't know what the age of our listeners are. Vaudeville
Speaker 1: was kind of a variety act thing that was really
Speaker 1: popular back in the nineteen tens, nineteen twenties, nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: so you'd have a whole variety of different acts. This
Speaker 1: is kind of the same thing, which is very cool
Speaker 1: from that perspective, but to a modern audience it would
Speaker 1: feel odd because this film thinks nothing of just full
Speaker 1: on stopping everything that's happening to do a ten minute
Speaker 1: sequence where a guy sits and plays the harp, and
Speaker 1: I literally mean that's all that happens. He just sits there,
Speaker 1: plays the harp. And there's another bit where a guy
Speaker 1: just sits there and plays the piano, and this film
Speaker 1: thinks nothing of doing that because it's got that variety
Speaker 1: show aspect in mind, whereas in a modern film, you
Speaker 1: imagine going to a studio and going, yes, so there's
Speaker 1: this ten minute sequence where we're going to we're going
Speaker 1: to sit and play the harp, and that studio would
Speaker 1: be like fired, Yeah, we're going to go and get
Speaker 1: generic director number twenty off of the lot and he
Speaker 1: will do everything we say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crack, or even if even if the director indulged
Speaker 2: themselves and filmed it in the and try to keep
Speaker 2: it in the edit that you be like.
Speaker 1: No, that's what director's cuts.
Speaker 2: So for Yeah, so they'd probably slice it out and
Speaker 2: they go, we look, it's great. Put it as a
Speaker 2: deleted scene on the DVD.
Speaker 1: We could use it to justify selling the four K
Speaker 1: Blu ray collection.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The thing is though, actually, actually, to be fair,
Speaker 2: to try and bring it into a modern twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six ideal, would it not be kind of like it well,
Speaker 2: to be fair, no, we still kind of do this.
Speaker 2: We do stunt casting more so than this is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so like, for example, the upcoming Street Fighter movie. I
Speaker 2: know it's a video game thing, but no, but it's
Speaker 2: we know the cast, and we know that there's people
Speaker 2: who've been casting it because of who they are, not
Speaker 2: because of necessarily matching the game or whatever. People yeah
Speaker 2: Cody Rhodes and you know. And it's because WW is
Speaker 2: huge at the moment pretty much always has been, and
Speaker 2: it's you know, going, hey, let's pull in this audience.
Speaker 2: So stunt casting is still going on. And I think
Speaker 2: there's certain films where you get things like where people
Speaker 2: do like little dances and stuff. We've seen it actually
Speaker 2: quite a bit. In like the Sonic movies, there's always
Speaker 2: a dance sequence and that's because that's good stuff that
Speaker 2: they record for generating interest on TikTok during the marketing phase.
Speaker 2: But it's always in the movie. So I think actually
Speaker 2: in a modern version of this, if you were to
Speaker 2: do like a modern Animal Crackers style movie, what you'd
Speaker 2: get is a bunch of sort of TikTok celebs, maybe
Speaker 2: a few people from WWE as your actual actors or something,
Speaker 2: and then you'd have a sequence where they're doing a
Speaker 2: TikTok dance and that would basically that would make it
Speaker 2: into your film. It wouldn't be like five minutes long.
Speaker 2: It might be a minute at max. But it gives
Speaker 2: you that little segment you can then stick on TikTok
Speaker 2: or put into the trailer and go.
Speaker 1: Hey kids, They absolutely do make stuff to just stick
Speaker 1: in TikTok. But I guess it doesn't feel the same
Speaker 1: because it would have to be as well. Yes, and
Speaker 1: as you said, it would be shorter, and it would
Speaker 1: be it would still be a production. Yes, this might
Speaker 1: as well be Harpo sitting in a black room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's just it's with the Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's one shot, it holds on him, and we just
Speaker 1: enjoy the music and appreciate the skill that goes into
Speaker 1: playing the harp. Whereas I think if you showed that
Speaker 1: to an audience now, you'd get people just being like, snooze.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty five young, I'm not a young man anymore.
Speaker 1: I was. I was pretty bored.
Speaker 2: Well where I am hip hop cooling down? I am
Speaker 2: young and cool and stylish.
Speaker 1: I'm for it, clearly nearly not quite there yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know what you mean. Younger audiences probably wouldn't
Speaker 2: tolerate it, certainly not for the length of time that
Speaker 2: it's on, even if they found it intriguing, not for
Speaker 2: like three solid minutes. And the thing that they put
Speaker 2: in this and unfortunately is in all except for the
Speaker 2: reason that the one that's considered the kind of the
Speaker 2: more accessible Marx Brothers film is Duck Soup is Duck Soup.
Speaker 2: Does not have a piano segment, does not have a
Speaker 2: harp a harp segment, and it also doesn't have a
Speaker 2: lead romantic couple who sing about their romance, whereas almost
Speaker 2: every single other well certainly from in this as well
Speaker 2: as in a night of the Opera onwards. That was
Speaker 2: like an established trope that they'd have in all their films.
Speaker 2: So Duck Soup is kind of a little bit more
Speaker 2: accessible to younger audiences nowadays because it plays more in
Speaker 2: a way towards what younger audiences might watch if they
Speaker 2: were to give a black and white old movie a chance,
Speaker 2: because it's it's short, quicker, and it's more about the comedy.
Speaker 2: But yes, I agree with you on this. The modern
Speaker 2: audiences would not tolerate themsic.
Speaker 1: Segments, something that I don't think. I can't think of
Speaker 1: an example that's modern, sort of within the last ten years.
Speaker 1: Something that's in this that we don't really get any more.
Speaker 1: That was obviously, as you've told me, it's a staple
Speaker 1: of the Marx Brothers, whether they're on vaudeville or in films.
Speaker 1: Is Harpo himself, you know, this silent clown.
Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, you can tell each of them is
Speaker 2: a different element of comedy. Groutcho's basically a stand up comic.
Speaker 2: Harpoe is the silent movie prap like what's it called
Speaker 2: physical comedian basically in a weird way. Matthew Perry from Friends, etc.
Speaker 2: He was kind of a blend of those two. He
Speaker 2: had the quick wit of Groutcho, but he also had
Speaker 2: the practicality of doing pratfalls like Harpo. But then you
Speaker 2: also get the guy. I don't think those two alone
Speaker 2: would work. Chico is like a great blend of those
Speaker 2: two where he's able to kind of match toe to
Speaker 2: toe with Graucho by confusing his wit, and he also
Speaker 2: plays well physically against Harpo. But he's also he brings
Speaker 2: his own thing to the table as well. But it's it.
Speaker 2: But they're like, I don't know what I would compare
Speaker 2: Chico two as I'm guessing just I guess a variety
Speaker 2: act because he can do comedy jokes and he can
Speaker 2: play piano, So maybe he's just the straight line version,
Speaker 2: ironically of the variety act, whereas Chico is more as
Speaker 2: whereas Groucho is more stand up and Harpoe is more
Speaker 2: physicality to the only.
Speaker 1: Because you're, funnily enough, the person who popped into my
Speaker 1: head is doing the silent gimmick. But this is not modern.
Speaker 1: This person is still around. Yeah, it's not modern because
Speaker 1: this person is like sixty something years old now. Is
Speaker 1: Teller from Penn and teller, Yeah, because his whole gimmick
Speaker 1: is he never speaks. Yeah, and yeah, he is basically
Speaker 1: a modern half over. Yeah, but it's magic tricks, not
Speaker 1: acting as such. But there is an element of slight
Speaker 1: of hand with Harpo as well. Like one thing that
Speaker 1: I was impressed by was the amount of coordination that
Speaker 1: was needed to do certain tricks. Like there's a bit
Speaker 1: where he's trying to rob a guy's wallet, and what
Speaker 1: he does is the guy's talking to Chico and he's
Speaker 1: got the wallet in his hand, and he shows Cheico
Speaker 1: something in the wallet, and he's showed it to Cheico,
Speaker 1: and as he goes to put it back in his pocket,
Speaker 1: he's still looking at Cheeko. You know, in a move
Speaker 1: that any guy has done a million times year, you
Speaker 1: just instinctively shove it back in your pocket. But as
Speaker 1: he does that, Harpo like overlays his own leg over
Speaker 1: the guys in just one motion, and to be fair
Speaker 1: to both Harpoe and the guy doing it Chandler Roscoe,
Speaker 1: Chandler Chandler, he just slips it in seamlessly. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of the bits that, funnily enough, held up
Speaker 1: to me, are still the funniest bits were actually those
Speaker 1: bit of really coordinated comedy don't work type.
Speaker 2: Thing, and a lot of that is Harpo. Ironically, the
Speaker 2: guy who is the Silent era performer realistically is the
Speaker 2: one that holds up the most when it comes to
Speaker 2: the physic like because a lot of that physicality is
Speaker 2: now back in vogue because it's easily digestible and like
Speaker 2: TikTok style stuff. That being said, the reason that Groucho
Speaker 2: still holds up is he's got quite a lot of
Speaker 2: sometimes just in nane but sometimes quite witty put downs.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a bit where Chico, he gets pissed
Speaker 2: off with Chico and he goes, are you done? Well? Well, congratulations,
Speaker 2: you've solved the case. Do you want to lie down?
Speaker 2: Why don't you just go lie down until Rigamortis sets in.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of quick lines that follow one
Speaker 2: after the other, and he does it and slags everyone
Speaker 2: off throughout the film.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's it's funny. I appreciate Groucho Marx's reputation and
Speaker 1: what an impact he had on Hollywood and on entertainment
Speaker 1: in general. And I can certainly see obviously someone like
Speaker 1: yourself really like that there is something of his style
Speaker 1: of comedy that I just don't find funny. And I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if it's because I know
Speaker 1: you first, but I just there's a gimmick he does
Speaker 1: a couple of times in this film that I didn't
Speaker 1: find funny. I know you did, and that's actually fine,
Speaker 1: where he just talks utter nonsense. Yeah, I'm guessing to
Speaker 1: confuse people or to like buy time for stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. So he's kind of like this. He's
Speaker 2: almost like a shotgun sometimes with his mouth. So there'll
Speaker 2: be bits where he's literally just like laying into him.
Speaker 2: There's bits where he's kind of perplexing them for a reason,
Speaker 2: and then there's bits, as you say, where he's just
Speaker 2: talking nonsense to bamboozle them. And there's one bit where
Speaker 2: he's he just starts talking about blending one through over another,
Speaker 2: tastes more like custard than rhubarb does, or something like that,
Speaker 2: and it's inane, has nothing to do with the plot,
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with the scene. It's just him
Speaker 2: talking bollocks. But I think a little bit of that
Speaker 2: maybe connected to, as I say, the stand up culture
Speaker 2: of the time. I remember a nineties TV show called
Speaker 2: The Far Show nineteen nineties because now it feels like
Speaker 2: we did one hundred years old. I have to state
Speaker 2: the decade.
Speaker 1: And isn't it as well The Fast Show.
Speaker 2: Yes, but there's a character they draw in that called
Speaker 2: Arthur Atkinson or something, and he's a comedian from the
Speaker 2: Groucho era and he's got basically a slogan which is
Speaker 2: where's mew washboard? But it's very much of that. It's
Speaker 2: mocking the stand up of that era, where they normally
Speaker 2: have just a catchphrase that people would laugh at even
Speaker 2: if it was in nane and made no sense. And
Speaker 2: then a lot of the comedy was just with that.
Speaker 2: They made it that he was a bit of a
Speaker 2: piece of shit, but a lot of the comedy was
Speaker 2: just irrelevant stuff and people going, oh, that's quite witty,
Speaker 2: like he's just taking us around on this weird journey
Speaker 2: of And to be fair, we still have some comedians
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: I say, to be fair, maybe we're coming back round
Speaker 1: to that. And I don't know if it's that we're
Speaker 1: coming back round to randomness being part of the joke,
Speaker 1: it's me being older ship but like, for example, please
Speaker 1: explain to me Rauscham or anyone in the audience. What
Speaker 1: is funny about skibbity toiletlet? What? What? What?
Speaker 2: Six seven?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, what is funny about it? I don't understand.
Speaker 2: I don't understand it either. Unfortunately I have aged out
Speaker 2: of understanding skibbity toilet or six seven.
Speaker 1: I don't think I kind of understood it even when
Speaker 1: I was that age. But you don't know, because but
Speaker 1: we did have maybe, but we did have, like we
Speaker 1: had our own share of random comedy, like The Mighty Boosh.
Speaker 1: Everyone was no I hated them. Everyone I was at
Speaker 1: school with loved the Mighty Boosh in my little friendship group.
Speaker 1: And I watched one episode. I didn't even finish the episode.
Speaker 1: I was just like, this is awful, this is not funny.
Speaker 1: What the fuck is this ship? So maybe that we're
Speaker 1: saying that kind of comedy doesn't exist anymore, But maybe.
Speaker 2: That just I think it just changes slightly. Plus, I
Speaker 2: think an element of it is it has to catch
Speaker 2: you at the right time, or you have to be
Speaker 2: the right age for it to catch you. A good
Speaker 2: example might be I remember there was a while while
Speaker 2: I was working at a different at a shop, there
Speaker 2: was this weird thing of Ugandon knuckles and yeah that again,
Speaker 2: if you were to say that, show that to someone now,
Speaker 2: they probably wouldn't get it, let alone in near enough
Speaker 2: one hundred years time. Just go all your nod you
Speaker 2: were here with a weird Ugandan knuckles drawn caricature, people
Speaker 2: be like, what the fuck you want to put? It
Speaker 2: would mean nothing to them, And so I assume some
Speaker 2: of the stuff that means nothing to us now from
Speaker 2: the way he performs, or because there's bits as well
Speaker 2: where he's doing silly dances for no reason, just pratting about.
Speaker 2: I don't mind it because I kind of take it
Speaker 2: for the era it's in. But I imagine if you
Speaker 2: were to do something like that in a modern film,
Speaker 2: people go, what the fuck is this? You know, it
Speaker 2: depends I guess it depends on the film, and it
Speaker 2: depends on the actor. Some actors can get away with it,
Speaker 2: other actors can't. Like if you if you watched Michael
Speaker 2: Fassbender do it, you'd be like, what the fuck is this?
Speaker 2: But if Ryan Goslin, I'm just ken works because it's
Speaker 2: Ryan Goslin. You could just want to say Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 2: But actually Ryan Goslin could pull it off because I
Speaker 2: love anywhere else that be a ten.
Speaker 1: I don't know the rest of the words. I've never
Speaker 1: seen the Barbie movie.
Speaker 2: I will say this, I love Ryan Gosling. He can
Speaker 2: do whatever he wants because it not like that. That's
Speaker 2: that's not what I mean.
Speaker 1: I don't say anything but your face. You can't see
Speaker 1: my face. Record separate record, separate recording. We are not
Speaker 1: in the living room of my moldy chili flat. The
Speaker 1: pun humor is one that has kind of aged out
Speaker 1: because at a certain point in history, I don't know
Speaker 1: when this point occurred, we basically took pun humor and went, hey,
Speaker 1: let's put this on the back of Penguin packets and
Speaker 1: then everyone for the rest of time will hate it.
Speaker 1: Some of the puns in this don't work. I don't
Speaker 1: understand now why you forced some of them, because what
Speaker 1: was the court one that didn't work for me?
Speaker 2: Uh? It was, yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Quaint if I had four quaints, it would be a
Speaker 1: gallon or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it. It was something to do with
Speaker 2: getting four quarts to a gallon. But the word wasn't caught.
Speaker 2: It was a quaint or a quirt. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a word that just doesn't sound like quar.
Speaker 2: The one that didn't work was the one because his
Speaker 2: accent doesn't make it work. It is you, as you said.
Speaker 2: If you said it in a Scottish accent, it would
Speaker 2: have worked. Is he uses, He says he's talking about moose,
Speaker 2: but he then goes, you know what, moose are there
Speaker 2: little their little raptail things that run around cheese cheese
Speaker 2: and run away from cats. And you're like, but moose
Speaker 2: in a New York accent doesn't sound like mouse, but
Speaker 2: in Scottish.
Speaker 1: It would moose.
Speaker 2: Moose.
Speaker 1: There's a moose in the hoose, the moose loose about
Speaker 1: this hoose.
Speaker 2: But I don't know about that. With puns, I think
Speaker 2: I don't think it's something that very young general get like.
Speaker 2: I don't think gen Z would be into it.
Speaker 1: But you'll make them based on the groans when you
Speaker 1: make them at work.
Speaker 2: That's that's what I'm basically, to be fair, the grones
Speaker 2: is what I'm after. I'm one of them assholes. There
Speaker 2: are punk comedians, and what's weird is a punk comedian
Speaker 2: doesn't really do it for me. Puns within something else
Speaker 2: are fine, but on their own raw off a little bit.
Speaker 1: There's a guy I don't know his name, but there's
Speaker 1: a stand up who keeps popping up on my phone.
Speaker 1: Actually he's a guy with glasses and a blaser, British guy,
Speaker 1: and he just does joke joke.
Speaker 2: Is it Gary Delaney?
Speaker 1: It might be. I don't know his name.
Speaker 2: There's there's a guy called Delaney. He's married to. Gary
Speaker 2: Delaney is married to Sarah Milliken, another comedian in the UK.
Speaker 2: But she does like narrative comedy.
Speaker 1: Which is what I like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And to be honest, I like narrative comedy
Speaker 2: better when it comes from stand up. I do like wordplay.
Speaker 2: I do like puns.
Speaker 1: It is Gary Delaney, I've just checked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But there's also within the UK a Canadian guy
Speaker 2: who does a lot of it. He does kind of
Speaker 2: look like you though, no, he doesn't know. He doesn't.
Speaker 2: He actually doesn't.
Speaker 1: Literally, I've never seen someone look.
Speaker 2: So much like now. He doesn't look a thing like me,
Speaker 2: he really doesn't.
Speaker 1: I want to put a picture upon her on the
Speaker 1: parlor films.
Speaker 2: I don't look like him.
Speaker 1: If you if you were a little slimmer and you
Speaker 1: grew your beard out.
Speaker 2: So I'm the fat one.
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you want me to lie? Okay,
Speaker 1: if you gained twenty pounds, you would look like him.
Speaker 2: I don't look like him. Literally, he's completely different nose,
Speaker 2: the same nose, it's a different nose, and I would knows.
Speaker 2: But there's him, There's a Canadian guy, and there's I
Speaker 2: can't remember his name. There's a guy who always wears
Speaker 2: like weird Hawaiian shirts, has messy hair and the way
Speaker 2: he Milton Milton Jones. And he's another one. So there's
Speaker 2: like at least three just raw gag me like pun comedians.
Speaker 2: And all they do is they come up on stage
Speaker 2: and they just do pun after pun after pun after
Speaker 2: pun after pun, which is fine. I respect the word play,
Speaker 2: but you become you desensitized to it. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: like gross out humor. Or. This happens to Frankie Boyle.
Speaker 2: He was good for shock humor. The problem is is
Speaker 2: if you just keep increasing the shock, eventually you run
Speaker 2: out and you get desensitized to it. So when he
Speaker 2: comes out and calls you the hard Sea words, you're
Speaker 2: just like, yeah, right, like you've said this seventeen times,
Speaker 2: so who gives a shit? Yeah? So, and I think
Speaker 2: puns operate on the same function, is I like. I
Speaker 2: know you're not a big fan of them, but for me,
Speaker 2: I like puns, but you've got to you've got to
Speaker 2: place them within something else for them to really work.
Speaker 2: That's that's my view. And I like them in this
Speaker 2: setting because at least if it was just Groucho start
Speaker 2: to finish, just going around, it would get tiresome. It's
Speaker 2: the fact that you have the balance that makes Mark's
Speaker 2: Brothers work for me.
Speaker 1: Like, like we pointed out, the lack of a story,
Speaker 1: a real story I think hurts this movie because it
Speaker 1: feels way longer than it actually is, and it also
Speaker 1: feels like they're tacked in doing skits within another play. Yes,
Speaker 1: and as you said, you feel the pace drop every
Speaker 1: time the Marx Brothers aren't on screen.
Speaker 2: They try to doing comedy moments with the other characters.
Speaker 2: There's bits where the other characters are doing jokes and
Speaker 2: you're just like, I'm sorry, but you're trying to do
Speaker 2: jokes in a Marx Brothers movie. Get the fuck off
Speaker 2: the screen, give me the brother's bag if you're gonna
Speaker 2: do comedy. Something I do like in this film. I
Speaker 2: actually quite like the sets. Now, they don't look around
Speaker 2: percent realistic, but they are massive and they are grand,
Speaker 2: and I think they are Art Deco the way that
Speaker 2: they're designed, or at least a pre Art Deco style.
Speaker 2: I like this because, let's be honest, most modern films
Speaker 2: don't have any sets. Basically, it's got large, elaborate sets.
Speaker 2: There's a bit where Harpo parkours up half of it,
Speaker 2: which is and this isn't the only film that he
Speaker 2: does a little bit of parkour in. There's one where
Speaker 2: he runs up Obviously they've tricked it somehow, but you know,
Speaker 2: you get those curtain like stage curtains that have designs
Speaker 2: on them, like in It's actually in a Night at
Speaker 2: the Opera, they drop a curtain down that has like
Speaker 2: a set painted onto it, of like a train station.
Speaker 2: He runs up it with just his feet and without
Speaker 2: his hands, just running straight up it. Now, obviously they've
Speaker 2: tricked that, but he is actually doing it. I'm just
Speaker 2: imagining he must be on a wire or something that
Speaker 2: you can't see, but the way it's done, it looks
Speaker 2: like he's running straight up it. And it's kind of
Speaker 2: like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but like nearly one hundred
Speaker 2: years before Crouching Tiger hidden tracking, which is quite impressive.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the set design on this I thought was
Speaker 2: really cool, and some of the music is cool. I
Speaker 2: like the hello I must be going from Captain Spaulding,
Speaker 2: and I do like the bit at the piano where
Speaker 2: he can't remember the finish yeah, so he just keeps
Speaker 2: looping back. That was a good bit. As always with
Speaker 2: Marx Brothers films, pretty much I could have done without
Speaker 2: the romantic couples song. It slows the pace down a
Speaker 2: lot because a it's not funny, but it's not brief
Speaker 2: and see, I don't give a shit about these people.
Speaker 2: It'd be like if they made an ace Ventura film
Speaker 2: and for about seven minutes of the film, we're following
Speaker 2: two Rando's who aren't charismatic and don't add anything to
Speaker 2: the main story, and they're just like.
Speaker 1: I love you, I love you.
Speaker 2: You'd be like, mate, where's fucking Jim Carrey anyway? Sorry
Speaker 2: that I just want to talk a bit about set
Speaker 2: and sound and music. Yeah, I still really enjoy this film.
Speaker 2: I will watch it again, yea, as I do most
Speaker 2: Marx Brothers movies. This is one of the better ones
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine I'd ever watched this again, but I
Speaker 1: am glad to have seen it for the experience, for
Speaker 1: the historical relevance. So I'm glad to have seen it.
Speaker 1: It's probably not gonna be one I watch again. I
Speaker 1: do think comedy in general probably ages worse than any
Speaker 1: other genre. I think we've talked about that before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it makes sense. It makes sense.
Speaker 1: Well, there you have it, folks. That is Animal Crackers.
Speaker 1: Have you seen Animal Crackers? What did you think about it?
Speaker 1: Have you seen any Marx Brothers movies? What were your
Speaker 1: favorite Marx Brothers movies? Let us know in the comments
Speaker 1: or by emailing Infodt in Polo Films at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much everyone. We will be back next
Speaker 1: week with more Second Take Cinema.