Review of Duck Soup (60)

Plot
To rescue the small country of Freedonia from bankruptcy, the wealthy Mrs. Teasdale agrees to donate $20 million dollars if Rufus T. Firefly is appointed as its new president.  Mayhem erupts around the new, sarcastic, dictator as the neighboring state sends inept spies to obtain top secret information, creating even more chaos!

Jason's Thoughts
My first experience with the Marx Brothers was A Night at the Opera, which was one of the earlier entries on the Top 100 movies list.  In my review of that movie, I said that the Marx Brothers have an appeal to them but it is one that needs to be acquired or you needed to be from that generation.  After watching Duck Soup, that assessment still stands, but I will say that this movie was much more enjoyable than A Night at the Opera.

Duck Soup flies by at a very quick pace and manages to fit in a ton of comedic material, some of which was laugh out loud funny and some of which was probably lost in time.  The Marx Brothers hit it on the spot most of the time, though, whether it be with a quick one-liner or a sight gag, which helped immensely to cover up for the thin plot that was going on around them.

Thin plot or not, the Marx Brothers did put on some memorable scenes during the movie.  The mirror scene immediately comes to mind and was easily the high point of the movie in my mind.  Duck Soup is worth watching at least once for that scene alone.  They also get some good laughs with their scenes with the guy at the lemonade stand and they get the repetitive comedy right with the motorcycle gag.

After seeing two of their films, I still cannot consider myself a huge fan of the Marx Brothers, but I can at least appreciate what they did for this style of comedy and how they set the standard for years to come.

Crystal's Thoughts
When I saw how long this movie was, it piqued my curiosity because really, not many movies that are short, especially this short, are all that good.  Had this one been a bit longer and allowed for a bit more substance, I think it could have been really good.  For me, I was left with blank spots that likely could have been filled in with a bit more length added to the film.  

The most obvious blank to me was where exactly the title, Duck Soup, fit in.  For me, titles of movies or books or stories should have some reference, even if underlying, within the genre.  There were a few ducks running around on screen as the opening credits rolled; however, they just added to the confusion as nothing more was ever suggested within the movie about ducks or duck soup.  Perhaps I just missed it.  After all, the movie was pretty short, and I personally don’t think I even had the characters all figured out by the end, as in who was who.  

The film though was a light comedy and brought even a few laughs out of me throughout.  I am not sure yet if I am particularity fond of the Marx Brothers.  Groucho somewhat creeps me out, though they do a fascinating job with comedy.  I’ll give them that.  Overall, it could just be that I was displeased with the spelling of Freedonia, a play on words I am sure, but it simply wasn’t humorous for this girl whose address was Fredonia, ND, for 18 years.  At least Microsoft Word’s spell check and Dictionary.com side with me on the correct spelling.

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