by Walter Chaw
Duck Soup (1933)
U.S.: rental only
Canada: n/a
It’s easy to see the Marx Brothers as a relic of their time. The challenge with introducing an American vaudeville comedy team from the turn of the twentieth century is finding a pathway that doesn’t rely on condescension. Duck Soup (1933) is about the disastrous toll of a feckless narcissist holding the highest office in the land and how his enablers prop up a useful idiot who will protect their wealth and social position. Duck Soup, as I said, is about the United States in 2020.
Vaudeville had its roots in France. In the United States, it started in the form of travelling troupes and medicine shows of the kind the kids had just seen in The Seventh Seal. Eventually, these travelling shows found their way off the backs of wagons and into theatres.
- Why does Bergman choose the actors as survivors of the Plague?
- What could Bergman have been saying about his own medium, filmmaking, in allowing their survival?
At its peak, in the 1920s, Vaudeville was employing as many as 20,000 people in various roles. The “arts” are an industry comprising only in small part “above the line” talent. There are also stage managers, set- builders and decorators, lighting technicians, and an army of low-wage workers, not to mention the businesses that depend on the theatre’s traffic for their survival. I told my kids that the United States, as it’s currently constructed, despises funding for the arts.
- Why are the arts seen as non-essential?
- How do the arts impact your lives daily?
To keep to a theme: the modern corollary I was able to provide for Vaudeville is the Cirque du Soleil travelling circus. I asked the kids to think of their variety of acts–acrobatics, live music, a clown or a clutch of clowns–and what else the show entails (oratory, projected images, dance). This is the heart of Vaudeville: this evening’s entertainment features a collection of artists plying their various disciplines before moving the entire company to another stop along a circuit of venues across the country. In regards to the Cirque, both my son and daughter offered that it’s probably the only place where retired college and Olympic gymnasts can earn a living from their skills.
Buster Keaton was a vaudevillian, I told them. He started as a small child, and the signature gag he devised with his father was patterned after abuse. As the story goes, the audience was not impressed if young Buster cried when tossed about, but laughed uproariously when the child was stoic in the face of any atrocity. In this way, Buster’s persona as a persona–set upon, expressionless, implacable–was born.
There were five Marx brothers (a sixth, the eldest, died as an infant), though only three are well-remembered. Each took on specific, broad personas and stage names.
- Why were the stage personas for Vaudeville performers so broad?
- How does this assumption of broad personas bleed into silent film?
Like so many things for the stage, the gestures, expressions, and gags needed to be large enough to be seen from the “cheap seats,” as it were. The broadness of these performers and their performances can “date” vaudeville-era films for modern audiences. The challenge I presented to my kids was to regard silent-film performances as a stylistic choice rather than a historical relic.
- Why would an actor in 2020 choose to perform this way?
- What examples can you provide of modern performances that are in this style?
Their responses ranged from the physicality of Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise to the “loud” gesticulations of Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell.
I didn’t delve deeply into the individual personalities of the Marx Bros., but I did ask them to watch for the brother who functions as the “straight man” for the team. This “stealth” brother is “Zeppo,” the youngest of the five.
- How would you describe the function of each of the brothers?
- Why do you think Chico assumed a heavy Italian accent for his persona?
- What was the perception of Italians in the United States during this period?
- The brothers were Jewish; how does that identity play into their act? How does it remain ‘underground,’ as it were?
- Why do you think Harpo never speaks?
- How would you describe Groucho’s persona?
There was a great deal of racism towards Italians in the same way that most immigrant groups are hostilely perceived before (ideally?) a broader cultural assimilation. For decades in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, Italians were seen as an uneducated workforce threatening poor whites. Italian immigrants were also mainly Catholic, running them up against the strong anti-Catholic sentiment prevalent in the American South especially. The Marx Brothers were of Jewish heritage, another group that has, needless to say, dealt with a great deal of discrimination. Speculation about Chico’s shtick ranged from his wanting cover for his Jewishness with another hated ethnic group to his merely exploiting the Italian stereotypes of shiftiness and criminality.
There’s a lot of speculation as to how the names originated. I didn’t go much into it. The most popular iteration can be found here with some other Marx Bros. lore.
What is a “straight man” or “set-up man”?
Aside from Zeppo, the other great “straight man” is the inimitable Margaret Dumont. In Duck Soup, she plays a wealthy supporter and sponsor of Groucho’s assumption of the “Presidency” of “Freedonia.” It’s not entirely clear why she does this, but it’s a disastrous choice for the nation, as Groucho’s character, Rufus T. Firefly, immediately plunges Freedonia into a completely avoidable crisis.
The kids were quick to latch onto the similarities to our current plight. They remembered their parents’ fear on election night. We believed that this decision to place a constitutionally unfit human being in charge of the United States would put countless lives in peril. This reality has actually made Duck Soup less funny than it has been in the past.
What is the difference between a “straight man” and a “foil”?
This question inspires some interesting responses when I think the real answer could be as simple as: one is a man, the other is a woman. My daughter got close to coming up with this after we spent some time over how Zeppo was different, and not different, from Margaret Dumont in setting up jokes and maintaining a straight face. She wanted to know, though, why Zeppo ultimately got to be a hero–and a military one at that–while Dumont remained a joke. The gender disparity between the requirement of the “straight man” and the “foil” is a potentially fulsome area to attack.
Midway through Duck Soup, Groucho makes a joke about “and that’s why darkies were born” as a tag to a litany of things described by another character. It’s obviously a punchline, but it caused everyone to pause for a moment and wonder if he’d said what he said. Some prints of the film have, in fact, dubbed out this line.
“That’s Why Darkies Were Born” is a Ray Henderson and Lew Brown song popularized by Kate Smith in 1931. The song is about various menial tasks being the plight and duty of the “darky.”
I played them the Kate Smith version (she’s white), then Paul Robeson‘s (he’s black).
Some have said this song is a satire of bigotry and white supremacy, but it doesn’t play that way when a white person sings it. When a white person sings it, it comes off, shall we say, poorly.
- Why are African-Americans “allowed” to say the “n-word” and white people are not?
- What power dynamics that are impossible to redress in our culture?
- Kate Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America” was “banned” from Yankees and Philadelphia Flyers games in 2019, partly because of songs like “That’s Why Darkies Were Born.” What do you think were the reasons behind this decision, and how do you feel about those reasons and the result of them?
My kids understand on a cellular level how taboo the “n-word” is and added other words–the “r-word” and the “f-word”–to the list of terms that describe the same unaddressable power dynamic in our culture. They wouldn’t even say those words during this discussion, so firmly are they programmed against it. I said to them that there are about 170,000 words in the English language; the fact that they can’t use three of them out of respect for other human beings is absolutely the smallest “sacrifice” they could make. What went unsaid–because I didn’t seem to need to say it–was that anyone who didn’t feel this way should be held with the greatest suspicion and contempt.
As for the line in the film, Groucho is tacking it on to a list in a way that speaks mainly to someone’s rambling rather than to the content of the song. That is, it’s a joke about the song’s structure as opposed to its racism.
- Which jokes require knowledge of contemporary pop trends and are, therefore, less effective for you?
- How much should humour depend on “current” events?
- What things that are currently popular will likely be forgotten in 80 years?
The kids loved Duck Soup. The opening, all Groucho patter, including some off-colour entendre towards Dumont’s character, was viewed with a little trepidation, but as soon as Chico and Harpo appeared, the ice broke. Their timing is magical, and their target–a rival street vendor–was a lot more palatable to them. Acceptance of the Chico/Harpo business paved the way for an open embrace of the film’s sharp political satire.
- What’s the role of leadership in our world?
- What makes a good leader?
- Why isn’t Firefly a good leader?
- How are violence and death treated in this film?
- Who are the “good guys”? Who are the bad guys?
Next time: James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), a film that my friend Matt Zoeller Seitz describes as a medium-budget B-programmer punching way above its weight class. Smart, ferocious, tender, and full of ideas about love and destiny.
