The first Marx Bros movie where all four start the story as friends – well, maybe “friends” is putting it a bit strong, but they’re all stowaways together and Zeppo is even allowed to take part of the initial havoc-wrecking (when busted among the first thing the four of them do is start playing musical instruments). Zeppo is the romantic male lead here – he’s not really good looking or charming enough, but it does mean he has something to do for the first time in a movie (he even brawls with the baddie in the finale). While the concept of the film is “the Marx Brothers stowaway on a boat” the actual spine of the piece has them being hired by rival gangsters on the boat; Groucho and Zeppo work for one, Chico and Harpo for the other (the “good” gangster – good because he’s got a daughter who falls for Zeppo and because he’s retired).The script was the Marxes first original for the screen but it could easily be adapted to stage, with the action consisting of basically a lot of running around and a specific second act curtain (to wit, the arrival of the stowaways in America); there are, however, no songs in this one until the last act – and one of these are given to the romantic leads, not just Chico and Harpo. Actually because these numbers only appear in the last third of the film, they really slow things down – the structure of this one is off.
Watching the first Groucho-Chico routine it struck me that the material is often poor (mostly outrageous puns) but the playing so confident and anarchic it dates pretty well. Silent Harpo dates not at all – there’s been no silent comic to touch him since, really, at least not in the movies. There’s no Margaret Dumont in this film but there is Thelma Todd as a vamp. Todd later died mysteriously and this is her best known credit; she’s not a fantastic actor but she’s pretty and game. (NB another Marx ingenue - Lilian Roth from Animal Crackers - also had tragedy in her life).
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