Monday, May 07, 2012
Love Story
— Orson Welles on Make Way for Tomorrow
By John Cochrane
No one film dominated the 1937 Academy Awards, but with the country still in the grips of the Great Depression and slowly realizing Europe’s inevitable march back into war, the subtle theme of the evening in early 1938 seemed to be distant escapism — anything to help people forget the troubled times at home. The Life of Emile Zola, a period biopic set in France, won best picture. Spencer Tracy received his first best actor Oscar, playing a Portuguese sailor in Captains Courageous, and Luise Rainer was named best actress for a second year in a row, playing the wife of a struggling Chinese farmer in the morality tale The Good Earth.
Best director that year went to Hollywood veteran Leo McCarey for The Awful Truth. McCarey’s resume was impressive. He paired Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy together as a team, and he had directed, supervised or helped write much of their best silent work. He had collaborated with W.C. Fields, Charley Chase, Eddie Cantor, Mae West, Harold Lloyd, George Burns and Gracie Allen — almost an early Hollywood Comedy Hall of Fame. He had also directed the Marx Brothers in the freewheeling political satire Duck Soup (1933) — generally now considered their best film. The Awful Truth was a screwball comedy about an affluent couple whose romantic chemistry constantly sabotages their impending divorce that starred Irene Dunne, Ralph Bellamy — and a breakout performance by a handsome leading man named Cary Grant — who supposedly had based a lot of his on-screen persona on the personality of his witty and elegant director. Addressing the Academy, the affable McCarey said “Thank you for this wonderful award. But you gave it to me for the wrong picture.”
The picture that McCarey was referring to was his earlier production from 1937, titled Make Way for Tomorrow — an often tough and unsentimental drama about an elderly couple who loses their home to foreclosure and must separate when none of their children are able or willing to take them both in. The film opened to stellar reviews and promptly died at the box office — being unknown to most people for decades. Fortunately, recent events have begun to rectify this oversight as this buried American cinematic gem turns 75 years old.
Based on Josephine Lawrence’s novel The Years Are So Long, the film opens at the cozy home of Barkley and Lucy Cooper (Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi), who have been married for 50 years. Four of their five children have arrived for what they believe will be a joyous family dinner — until Bark breaks the news that he hasn’t been able to keep up with the
mortgage payments since being out of work and that the bank will repossess the property within days. Bark and Lucy insist that they will stay together, regardless of what happens. With little time to plan, the family decides that, for the time being, Lucy will move to New York to live with their eldest son George’s family in their apartment, while Bark will be 360 miles away — sleeping on the couch at the home of their daughter Cora (Elisabeth Risdon) and her unemployed husband Bill (Ralph Remley). For the film's first hour or so, we see Bark and Lucy trying to adjust to their new surroundings. While George (an excellent Thomas Mitchell) tries to be as pleasant and accommodating to his mother as possible, his wife Anita (Fay Bainter) and daughter Rhoda (Barbara Read) display little patience and dislike the disruption of their routines. Meanwhile, Bark spends his time walking around his new hometown, looking for a job and visiting a new friend, a local shopkeeper named Max Rubens (Maurice Moscowitz).Many filmmakers develop a visual signature that dominates their work, but McCarey employs a fairly basic and straightforward style, using group and reaction shots as well as perceptive editing that places the emphasis on the actors and the story. Working with screenwriter Vina Delmar, McCarey creates set pieces that blend touches of light comedy and everyday drama that feel so correct and truthful that audiences likely feel a sometimes uncomfortable recognition with them. Often, this stems from McCarey's use of improvisation to sharpen his scenes before filming them. If short on ideas, he would play a nearby piano on the set until he figured out what to do. This practice creates a freshness that, as Peter Bogdanovich points out, gives the impression that what you’re watching wasn't planned but just happened. A large part of the film’s greatness also comes from the cast, headed by Moore and Bondi as Bark and Lucy. Both theatrically trained actors, vaudeville star Moore (age 61) and future Emmy winner Bondi (age 48), through the wonders of make-up and black and white photography prove completely convincing as an elderly couple in their 70s.
Moore performs terrifically as the blunt, but loving Bark. Bondi gives an even better turn as Lucy. In one scene, representative of McCarey’s direction and Bondi’s performance, Lucy inadvertently interrupts a bridge-playing class being taught by her daughter-in-law at the apartment by making small talk and noticing the cards in players’ hands. She’s an intrusion, but by the end of the evening, after being abandoned by her granddaughter at the movies and returning home, she takes a phone call in the living room from her husband. Critic Gary Giddins notes that as the class listens in to her side of the conversation, she becomes highly sympathetic — and the scene now flips with the card students visibly moved and feeling invasive of her space and privacy. Then there’s the crucial scene where Lucy sees the writing on the wall and offers to move out of the apartment and into a nursing home without Bark’s knowledge, before her family can commit her — so as not to be a burden to them anymore. She shares a loving moment with her guilt-ridden son George. (“You were always my favorite child,” she sincerely tells him.) His disappointment in himself in the scene’s coda resonates deeply. Lucy’s character seems meek and easily taken advantage of when we first meet her, but she’s really the strongest person in the story. It’s her love and sacrifice for her husband and family that give the movie much of its emotional weight, and the unforgettable final shot belongs to her.
McCarey and Delmar create totally believable characters and it should be pointed out that while friendly, decent people, Bark and Lucy, by no means, lack flaws. Bark doesn't make a particularly good patient when sick in bed two-thirds of the way through the story, and Lucy stands firm in her ways and beliefs — traits that can annoy, but people can be that way. Even the children aren’t bad — they have reasons that the audience can understand — even if we don’t agree with their often seemingly selfish or preoccupied behavior. This delicate skill of observation was not lost on McCarey’s good friend, the great French director Jean Renoir, who once said, “McCarey understands people better than anyone in Hollywood.”
As memorable a first hour as Make Way for Tomorrow delivers, McCarey saves the best moments for the film’s third act. Bark and Lucy meet one last time in New York, hours before his train departure for California to live with their unseen daughter Addie for health reasons. For the first time since the opening scene, the couple finally reunites. The last 20 minutes of the picture overflows with what Roger Ebert refers to in his Great Movies essay on the film as mono no aware — which roughly translated means “a bittersweet sadness at the passing of all things.” Regrets, but nothing that Bark and Lucy really would change if they had to do everything over again.
Throughout the story, the Coopers often have been humiliated or brushed off by their children. When a car salesman (Dell Henderson) mistakes them for a wealthy couple and takes them for a ride in a fancy car, the audience cringes — expecting another uncomfortable moment — but then something interesting happens. As they arrive at their destination and an embarrassed Bark and Lucy explain that there’s been a misunderstanding, the salesman tactfully assuages their concerns. He allows them to save face, by saying his pride in the car made him want to show it off. Walking into The Vogard Hotel where they honeymooned 50 years ago, the Coopers get treated like friends or VIPs — first by a hat check girl (Louise Seidel) and then by the hotel manager (Paul Stanton), who happily takes his time talking to them and comps their bar tab. Bark and Lucy's children expect their parents at George’s apartment for dinner, but Bark phones them to say that they won't be coming.
At one point, we see the couple from behind as they sit together, sharing a loving moment of intimate conversation. As Lucy leans toward her husband to kiss him, she seems to notice the camera and demurely stops herself from such a public display of affection. It’s an extraordinary sequence that’s followed by another one when Bark and Lucy get up to dance. As they arrive on the dance floor, the orchestra breaks into a rumba and the Coopers seem lost and out of place. The watchful bandleader notices them, without a word, quickly instructs the musicians to switch to the love song “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Bark gratefully acknowledges the conductor as he waltzes Lucy around the room. Then the clock strikes 9, and Bark and Lucy rush off to the train station for the film’s closing scene.
Paramount studio head Adolph Zukor reportedly visited the set several times, pleading with his producer-director to change the ending, but McCarey — who saw the movie as a labor of love and a personal tribute to his recently deceased father — wouldn’t budge. The film was released to rave reviews, though at least one reviewer couldn’t recommend it because it would “ruin your day.” Industry friends and colleagues such as John Ford and Frank Capra were deeply impressed. McCarey even received an enthusiastic letter from legendary British playwright George Bernard Shaw, but the Paramount marketing department didn’t know what to do with the picture. Audiences, still facing a tough economy, didn’t want to see a movie about losing your home and being marginalized in old age. They stayed away, while the Motion Picture Academy didn’t seem to notice. McCarey was fired from his contract at Paramount (later rebounding that year at Columbia with the unqualified success of The Awful Truth), and the film seemed to disappear from view for many years.
The movie never was forgotten completely though. Screenwriter Kogo Noda, who wrote frequently with the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, saw the film and used it as an inspiration for Ozu’s masterpiece Tokyo Story (1953), in which an elderly couple journey to the big city to visit their adult children and quietly realize that their offspring don’t have time for them in their busy lives — only temporarily getting their full attention when one of the parents unexpectedly dies during the trip home. Ironically, Ozu’s film also would be unknown to most of the world for decades, until exported in the early 1970s, almost 10 years after the master filmmaker’s death. Tokyo Story, with its sublime simplicity and quiet insight into human nature now is considered by many critics and filmmakers to be one of the greatest movies ever made — placing high in the Sight & Sound polls of 1992 and 2002. In the meantime, Make Way for Tomorrow slowly started getting more attention in its own right, probably sometime in the mid- to late 1960s. Although the movie never was released on VHS, it occasionally was shown enough on television to garner a devoted underground following. More recently, the movie played at the Telluride Film Festival, where audiences at sold out screenings were stunned by its undeniable quality and its powerful, timeless message. Make Way for Tomorrow was finally was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection and was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress on the National Film Registry in 2010.
The funny phenomenon of how audiences in general dislike unhappy endings, and yet somehow our psyches depend on them always proves puzzling. Classics such as Casablanca (1942), Vertigo (1958), The Third Man (1949 U.K.; 1950 U.S.) and even the fictional romance in a more contemporary hit such as Titanic (1997) wouldn't carry the same stature or mystique in popular culture if they somehow had been pleasantly resolved. Life often disappoints and turns out unpredictably, messy and frequently filled with loss. Even though many people claim they don’t like sad stories, it comforts somehow to know that we aren’t alone — that others understand and feel similarly as we do about life’s experiences. It’s what makes us human.
Make Way for Tomorrow serves as many things. It’s a movie about family dynamics and the Fifth Commandment. Gary Giddins points out that it’s also a message film about the need for a safety net such as Social Security — which hadn't been fully implemented when the
picture was released. It’s a plea for treating each other with more kindness — in a culture that increasingly pushes the old aside to embrace the young and the new, and it’s one of the saddest movies ever made. At its most basic level, it’s a tender love story between two people who have spent most of their lives together — knowing each other so well that words often seem unnecessary. However you choose to look at it, Make Way for Tomorrow remains one of the greatest American films — certainly a strong contender for the best classic Hollywood movie that most people have never heard of. Leo McCarey would create highly successful hits that were more sentimental later on in his career — including the enjoyable romance Love Affair (1939) and its subsequent color remake An Affair to Remember (1957), starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. He also would direct Bing Crosby as a charismatic priest in 1944’s Going My Way (7 Oscars — including picture, director, actor) and its superior sequel, 1945’s The Bells of St. Mary’s (8 nominations, 1 win), co-starring Ingrid Bergman, but he never forgot about Make Way for Tomorrow, which remained a personal favorite until the day he died from emphysema in 1969. Leo McCarey did not live to see his masterpiece fully appreciated, but that wasn't necessary. In 1938, he knew the film’s value.It’s a marvelous picture. Bring plenty of Kleenex.
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Labels: 30s, Bellamy, Bogdanovich, Capra, Cary, Deborah Kerr, Ebert, Fields, Ingrid Bergman, Irene Dunne, John Ford, Luise Rainer, Marx Brothers, McCarey, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Renoir, T. Mitchell, Tracy, Welles
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Saturday, November 12, 2011
“It’s all perfectly clear to me — that adorable young thing is an unholy terror on wheels…”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Beginning with Leathernecking, her feature film debut in 1930, actress Irene Dunne staked out a lengthy career in motion pictures starting out as the epitome of the noble, long-suffering heroine in “four-hanky” films such as Back Street, Magnificent Obsession and The Age of Innocence. She also brought with her extensive experience in musical theater. Her initial foray into movies resulted, as it were, from her successful turn as Magnolia Hawks in the 1929 touring production of Show Boat (a role she later reprised in a 1936 film adaptation, considered by many to be the most faithful) — she was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout during her Chicago stop with the show — and her fine voice was marvelously utilized in vehicles such as Stingaree, Sweet Adeline and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical Roberta in which Dunne croons the now-standard “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”
In 1936, Dunne was ready to tackle her first feature film comedy, something that made her apprehensive at the time and, even though she proved in movies such as The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife (both directed by Leo McCarey), that she was a first-rate screen comedienne, she acquiesced later that “comedy is more difficult than drama,” adding: “An actress who can do comedy can do drama, but the vice versa isn’t necessarily true. Big emotional scenes are much easier to play than comedy. An onion can bring tears to your eyes, but what vegetable can make you laugh?” At the risk of being facetious and suggesting “zucchini” (it just sounds funny), none of this really matters in the long run…because 75 years ago on this date, Dunne and co-star Melvyn Douglas brought forth tears of laughter in a screwball comedy classic that seamlessly blends satire with romance: Theodora Goes Wild.
Lynnfield, Conn., brags that it’s “The Biggest Little Town in Connecticut” — but if you’ve ever spent time living in such a burg, you know that “everyone knows when the neighbors cough,” to quote a lyric from a song by the female country music duo Sweethearts of the Rodeo. Jed Waterbury, editor of The Lynnfield Bugle, has arranged for his paper to serialize the risqué (and best-selling) novel The Sinner, penned by mysterious authoress Caroline Adams and the local contingent of bluenoses — collectively known as the Lynnfield Literary Circle — is predictably up in arms at this development. Spinster sisters Mary (Elisabeth Risdon) and Elsie Lynn (Margaret McWade) marshal forces with town gossip Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington) to force Waterbury into ceasing publication; Perry even going so far as sending the book’s publisher, Arthur Stevenson (Thurston Hall), a scathing telegram (“Fewer and stronger words, I always say”). Rebecca also asks Mary and Elsie’s niece, Theodora Lynn (Dunne), to take some cookies to Rebecca’s daughter Adelaide (Rosalind Keith) when Theo announces her intention to pay her Uncle John (Robert Greig) a visit in New York City.
The trip to the Big Apple proves revelatory in two ways: first, Adelaide is staying with “wicked” Uncle John because her husband left her (her mother does not know she’s married) and she’s great with child. Second, the novelist known as “Caroline Adams” is none other than Theodora herself! She’s quite upset that Stevenson sold the serialized rights of her latest book to Waterbury and, worried that the town will discover the truth, she declares that her writing days are over. Stevenson tries to assuage her fears about her secret getting out, but the two are interrupted by the arrival of his wife Ethel (Nana Bryant) and Michael Grant (Douglas), the illustrator of “Caroline’s” novel. Ethel and Michael pressure Arthur into convincing Theo to spend the evening with them and after dinner, drinks (Theo orders straight whiskey when Michael challenges her strait-laced demeanor) and dancing, both Ethel and Theo end up spiffed. Stevenson must escort his wife home so he reluctantly entrusts Michael with the responsibility of putting Theo back on the train to Lynnfield. Instead, Theo is brought back to Michael’s Park Avenue apartment and when he tries to put the moves on her, she flees in terror.
Back home in the comfort food-environs of Lynnfield, Theo gets a surprise when Michael turns up unannounced and lands a position as her aunts’ unconventional gardener (threatening to blackmail her with Mary and Elsie by his presence). Michael’s involvement with and courtship of Theodora starts the town’s tongues wagging but after spending a good deal of time with him, Theo realizes she’s in love. She screws up the courage to reveal this to the Literary Circle (who are naturally scandalized by this news) but when she confesses her feelings to her would-be boyfriend he is far from enthused. As a matter of fact, he takes the first bus out of that biggest little town the next morning. Theodora chases after him, heading back to New York, where she learns that in his efforts to get her to shake off the stifling conformity that is small-town Lynnfield he has forgotten to “heal thyself.” Michael, though equally enamored of our heroine, is trapped in a loveless marriage with wife Agnes (Leona Maricle) — they are estranged but keep up the pretense in order to avoid creating a scandal that could torpedo his father’s political career (Pop, played by Henry Kolker, is New York’s lieutenant governor).
Theodora believes that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander: revealing that she is the Caroline Adams, she plays the role of the scandalized novelist and hints to an anxious press corps that she is more than just a houseguest in Michael’s apartment. Not only is Lynnfield’s populace traumatized by this turn of events, but Michael’s family is equally stunned, particularly when it is intimated that Theo will be named co-respondent in divorce proceedings involving Arthur and Ethel Stevenson. Things comes to a boil when Theodora crashes the Governor’s Ball and Michael, upset by her presence, orders her to go back home and stop making a fool of herself. (Embracing Michael one last time, the press gets a juicy photo of Theodora in the bargain, prompting wife Agnes to announce she wants a divorce.) Returning to Lynnfield, Theo is surprised to see that instead of being ostracized she is now welcomed by all as a celebrity — until she steps off the train cradling a newborn infant in her arms. The baby, of course, belongs to Adelaide Perry (who sneaks off the train with her husband in tow) but it puts a hilarious scare into the now-divorced Michael until Theo reveals the truth.
To my shame, I don’t always tout the charms of Irene Dunne as loudly as I do other film actresses and Theodora Goes Wild is a glaring example of my slackitude. Dunne is positively captivating as the small-town caterpillar who transforms into a gorgeous butterfly; every moment she’s onscreen it’s impossible to take your eyes off of her. Among the highlights of Theodora is her delightful drunk scene (rhumbaing with co-star Douglas) that’s a precursor to a similar sequence in the later Truth, and the moment she finally “goes wild,” sporting an eye-popping wardrobe (the outfit she has on when she sits at the piano in Douglas’ apartment is breathtaking) and giving the news hounds an earful about her life story while previewing her salacious “new book.” My favorite moment from Dunne is an admittedly quiet one when she’s visiting Uncle John and young mother-to-be Adelaide, apologizing for the state of the baked goods she brought from Adelaide’s mother: “Oh…by the way, your mother made some cookies for me…but I met a hungry man and he ate them all up.”
I’m on the record at my home base of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear as admitting that I’m not particularly a fan of Melvyn Douglas’ work (though it’s mostly his early films; he had a callowness that he later outgrew, becoming a first-rate character thesp in films such as Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Hud and The Candidate); in Theodora, however, he’s not too intolerable, apart from several scenes when he annoys everyone within earshot (both on and off-screen) with his incessant whistling. He gets in a funny line now and then; a real beaut is when he’s settling in to his new quarters in the Lynn family’s tool shed and, annoyed by the presence of Mary and Elsie, puns “Say, this place is crawling with aunts.” My reservations about Douglas aside, I think he acquits himself nicely in this one — his romance with Dunne is endearingly sweet and very believable, an attribute not always present in a majority of screwball comedies.
The believability of the romance against the background of spirited farce is the work of scenarist Sidney Buchman, who adapted Mary McCarthy’s original story and showcased an affinity for small-town life in such films as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The Talk of the Town. (The notion of individuals trying to escape being smothered by conformity also is touched upon in Buchman’s screenplay for
1938’s Holiday.) Author Hal Erickson has argued that Theodora doesn’t quite play as funny as it once did “only because most of its satirical targets (notably the shocked spinster aunts) have ceased to exist.” I take exception to that: I grew up in a town very similar to the one in the film and recognized all of its archetypes, particularly the uptight prude (a great performance from December Bride's Spring Byington) who’s got a few skeletons in a closet of her own. (It’s like how the “preacher’s daughter” always turned out to be the wildest in your group of high school friends.) Complimenting Buchman’s screenplay is the polished direction of Polish émigré Richard Boleslawski, who had a brief Hollywood career helming notable films such as Rasputin and the Empress, Les Miserables and Three Godfathers until his life was cut short at the age of 48 in 1937. Theodora Goes Wild remains one of his best pictures; he has a splendid way of punctuating the comedy with cinematic devices such as intercutting close-ups of Lynnfield’s old biddies discussing the scandal that is Theodora with shots of cats licking their chops. The laugh-out-loud scene in Theodora for me is when the town’s resident bluenoses are discussing Theodora’s return to Lynnfield, decreeing that the townsfolk won’t “step foot in that depot” and then we fade in to a SRO crowd at the station, complete with signs (“Caroline Adams — We Welcome You” and “Welcome Theodora”) and a brass band.
The performances of Dunne and Douglas are complimented by a splendid array of character actors at a time in films when supporting players were the “glue” of any successful picture. Thomas Mitchell is super as the sarcastic editor Waterbury (I love when he tells off Byington in the depot scene that he’s responsible for the brass band: “Now you get a lawyer and try to stop me from spending my own money any way I like!”), Thurston Hall is solid as Dunne’s slightly shady publisher, and Robert Greig as the “black sheep” of the respectable Lynn family, Uncle John. I've already mentioned that Byington is a delight (her fainting reaction to the news that she’s a grandma is hilarious) but I really enjoyed the performances of veterans Elizabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade as Aunts Mary and Elsie. Prim, proper and ever-so-cautious about besmirching the family name, they eventually begin to thaw (and you can literally see this happening as they ride through Lynnfield with Theodora and the baby, with Elsie snapping "You'd think they'd never seen a baby before" and Mary returning “So help me Hannah…this town gets more narrow-minded everyday…”) because while nobody invites a “scandal,” families close ranks and stick together when the chips are down.
With the success of Theodora Goes Wild, Irene Dunne embarked on a new career in motion picture comedy (though she did continue in dramatic roles as well), and her utterly beguiling performance in Theodora nabbed her an Academy Award nomination as best actress, her second following her heralded turn in 1931’s Cimarron. Dunne is considered by many to be the best actress never to win an Oscar. She’d follow her Theodora accolades with three additional nominations for The Awful Truth (1937 — the film for which she should have won), Love Affair (1939) and I Remember Mama (1948). Theodora also picked up a best film editing nomination for Otto Meyer, who also was shut out from ever receiving an Academy trophy, receiving a second nomination for Talk of the Town. Meyer also worked on three additional pictures with Dunne — Penny Serenade, Together Again and Over 21.) Biographer Wes D. Gehring, author of Irene Dunne: First Lady of Hollywood, once remarked in a USA Today article: “I would be especially happy to join her in the screwball world of Theodora Goes Wild…and never come back…” That’s as fine a diamond anniversary tribute to a superlative example of the screwball comedy genre as could ever be, and I welcome readers to follow suit.
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Labels: 30s, Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Irene Dunne, McCarey, Movie Tributes, Musicals, Oscars, T. Mitchell, Theater
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Monday, November 17, 2008
Hail, hail Freedonia!
By Edward Copeland
Can one of the greatest nonsensical farces ever made also be a savvy statement on the absurdity of war? The case could be made as far as the Marx Brothers' brilliant Duck Soup goes. After all, Kubrick had originally planned to end Dr. Strangelove with a pie fight. Duck Soup turns 75 today.
Directed by Leo McCarey, the film opens with a quite literal representation of the film's stars and titles: The Four Marx Brothers in Duck Soup as four real ducks swim in a pan of water. Yes, poor, bland Zeppo still is along for this outing, though it would be his last film with his better-known and wackier brothers.
The setting is the cash-strapped country of Freedonia, dependent on handouts from the wealthy widow (Margaret Dumont) of one of the country's founders. This time, she agrees to bail them out only if the current leader agrees to resign in favor of one Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho).
Meanwhile, the ambassador of neighboring Sylvania (Louis Calhern) is plotting to annex Freedonia for Sylvania, by hook or by crook. Unfortunately, though he appears devious and well-heeled, he somehow thinks it's a good idea to put Sylvania's fate in the hands of two spies (Chico and Harpo). The dialogue flies fast and furious and you'll never catch all the lines on the first viewing but any Marx Brothers film deserves to be seen more than once, especially this one, which I consider their best. I mean, this one has the mirror sequence alone. Their style of comedy is in many ways the precursor of the kind of wackiness that would be practiced decades later in films such as Airplane! or The Naked Gun. Still, it's once the war gets going in Duck Soup, that it truly gets surreal, interspersing bizarre musical numbers and placing Groucho in military uniforms from different eras in each new scene. The whole premise (and movie) is supposed to be ridiculous, but it's difficult not to see that there is something beneath the surface saying that about war in general. And some crazy comics shall lead them...
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Labels: 30s, Kubrick, Marx Brothers, McCarey, Movie Tributes
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