BRINGING IN THE NEW YEAR

There is no nicer way to bring in a new year than to watch a Marx Brothers marathon. And that is what TCM presented this New Year’s Eve. Among those I sat through or glimpsed were Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup and A Night at the Oper, all from the early 30’s.

Marx Brothers films are like musicals; you can look at them repeatedly and never get tired. Correction: They are musicals. They all include music and dance performances. In Monkey Business, Groucho dances with the hoodlum’s wife. He’s clowning, but he’s really dancing too. They dance on the floor, then dance on the bed, as if it were another dance platform, then dance on the floor again. I think of Astaire’s sofa-stunt choreography--dancing onto and capsizing the sofa--during a dance years later. Groucho’s is like a rough sketch for later, more polished performances. Harpo is a musician, a wonderful, under-appreciated harpist. But the non-stop jokes are timed in a way not unlike musical performances.

There is inspiration in these films too. In Monkey Business, the villain, tall, mean, dangerous, is on the verge of bumping off Groucho, But Groucho shows that you don’t have to respond according to program. He continues being a wiseass even as death hovers over him, and this unlikely behavior actually saves him!