Duck Soup (1933)

While not a hit on release, Duck Soup is now rightly regarded as a comedy classic and for my money it is definitely the most consistently laugh out loud funny of all of the Marx Brothers films.

The tiny fictional state of Freedonia is at the brink of war with neighbouring Sylvania, as well as being nearly bankrupt, with the leaders resorting to borrowing huge sums of money from a wealthy widow, Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont).  The catch is that she insists on replacing the current president with her friend, Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx), despite his seeming lack of qualifications for the job. Within no time he has insulted her friend the Sylvanian ambassador and the two countries are on the brink of war. Time for Sylvania to send in their finest spies, Chicolini (Chico Marx) and Pinky (Harpo Marx).

Although often thought of as a satirical piece, Duck Soup is not the sort of focussed dissection that Chaplin would attempt a few years later with The Great Dictator. Instead, the key word is anarchy. Most Marx Brothers films revolve around them taking down pompous University Professors or Opera directors and the same applies here, the difference being that the context is political rather than the content. Just like their other classic films, we are introduced to a staid, controlled, highly ordered world before the human fireworks are thrown in.

The rest of the humour comes from the relentless barrage of puns and wordplay, Harpo's insane visual gags and the kind of physical comedy the brothers had been perfecting since their vaudeville days. The most famous is the mirror sequence, impossible to describe as the magic of it is in the flawless timing.

Although the Marx Brothers roots were on the stage, there are some signs here of them embracing the medium of cinema in their own way. For example, during the final battle sequence, there is a bizarre montage of everything from stampeding elephants, to fire engines responding to Groucho's call for reinforcements. 

The influence of Duck Soup can be seen in a number of artists from Woody Allen (especially his film Bananas, with it's surreal tangents and a plot based around tinpot potentates) to Sacha Baron Cohen's recent movie The Dictator. Duck Soup may be over 80 years old but the biting cynicism still helps it feel surprisingly fresh and modern too. “...while you're out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are”. 

Son of Kong (1933)

Released just months after King Kong, and using much of the same cast and crew, Son of Kong is no match for the original. Despite some unique touches, and a likeable title character, the rushed ending and talky script make this sequel sometimes exciting, but, too often, dull.

The film opens with Carl Denham, the man who bought King Kong to New York, penniless and up to his neck in lawsuits from the death and destruction that caused by Kong. Jumping at the chance to get out of the country, he takes a job on a cargo ship, where he meets Nils Helstrom, the man who sold him the map to Kong Island in the first place. Helstrom is now full of tales of buried treasure on the island and says he wants to go back there - but is something much dangerous waiting for them instead?

The screenplay feels poorly thought out and put together in a rushed manner, which, given how quickly the film was released after the original, surely must have been the case. It assumes you have some knowledge of the first film, but given how fresh it would have been in the minds of the movie going public (and the extent to which the character of King Kong is still part of popular culture) this is unlikely to be a problem.  The first half is relentlessly talky, with dull dialogue delivered in a wooden manner, and while things pick up slightly when the characters reach Kong Island, there is still no momentum to the search for the treasure, a wasted opportunity.

The film only really comes to life during the action sequences, particularly the fights between Kong Junior and the assorted beasts, such as giant bears and dinosaurs that inhabit the island. While the special effects look dated, and not as carefully constructed as in the first film, presumably due to lack of time and money they are still elaborate and well done. Kong Junior comes across as more than just a roaring beast, being quite charming at times, and even a bit goofy and childlike, at one point doing a shrug of his shoulders to camera.

As is common in many of the films of the time, the attitudes to race look very dated. However, both the “Ooga Booga” tribesmen that the party encounter on the island, some of who look obviously blacked up, and Charlie the Chinese cook and his broken English are both too silly to cause any serious offence, being more insensitive than intentionally offensive.

In the closing few minutes, with an earthquake appearing from out of nowhere to destroy the island, we finally see the characters in some real peril, with a chance they might not all get out alive. Unfortunately, the rushed nature of the film means that we have not had time to get to know any of them, and when one does make the ultimate sacrifice, there is little emotional impact.

Morning Glory (1933)

On her way to making classics like The Philadelphia Story and Bringing Up Baby, Katherine Hepburn cut her teeth in nondescript fare like Morning Glory. A brisk, affable but ultimately forgettable film, it did get Hepburn the first of the four Academy Awards she would earn over her long career.

Hepburn plays Eva Lovelace, a small town stage actor, wanting to make it big on Broadway. After many fruitless auditions, a big time producer (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) takes a chance and gives her a part in one of his upcoming plays. However, on opening night, Rita Vernon, the star of the show storms off after demanding more money - can Eva step in and save the day?

The script focuses mostly on Eva, but does not really flesh her out as a character beyond the archetypal starry-eyed wannabe. Her well-off upbringing mirrors that of Hepburn to some extent, so the role might not have been too much of a stretch to act, but, she certainly comes across as convincing, and her distinctive speech patterns and accent are already in place.

The rest of the characters are largely unexceptional stereotypes, such as the diva actress, the powerful but put upon producer, and the writer who wants to stop doing hit plays and try something artistic. The one exception to this is Robert Hedges, the veteran actor who takes Eva under His wing, played with warmth and likeability by C. Aubrey Smith. A former Sussex and England Cricketer before turning to acting, Smith founded the Hollywood Cricket Club, roping in fellow expats such as David Niven, Nigel Bruce and Boris Karloff to play.

Whatever their individual faults or merits, I often like watching films from this era once, if only to see their place in the overall story of the development of cinema, as it sometimes feels as though people were still working out how to make talking pictures. The acting, with the exception of Hepburn and Smith, is a mix of the stilted and the slightly too theatrical, and the dialogue flat and uninspired. In addition, aside from scene filmed from the perspective of Rita Vernon's mirror, most of the shots are flat and unimaginative, something I seem to notice quite a lot in Hollywood films of the early 1930s. I have often wondered whether this is due to the directors or studios assuming that the novelty of sound was enough to keep the viewer interested.