March 30, 2009

Duck Soup

Title: Duck Soup
Year: 1933
Director: Leo McCarey
Writers: Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby (story), Arthur Sheekman & Nat Perrin (dialog)
Starring: The Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico & Zeppo), Margaret Dumont
Music: John Leipold
Distinctions: currently #193 on IMDb's Top 250
Synopsis: Groucho is a dictator, and Chico and Harpo are enemy spies
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), December 2008
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good).
Objective Rating: 4/10 (gets points for concept, dialog, pacing and subjective rating) c. 2.3/4 (Okay).

Funny, but not great-comedies-of-all-time funny. It doesn't help that most of the good gags have been stolen and improved hundreds of times. Harpo is fantastic, but otherwise the performances were disappointing.

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