Review of Duck Soup (1933) by Donovan D — 20 Mar 2008

The classic Marx brothers movie. Watching it now in the 21st Century, I have to say that Duck Soup has not aged quite as well as one would hope - it certainly didn't feel worthy of such hyperbolic praise as being on the top 100 films list.

Its not a bad film by any means; the constantly twisting puns and sight gags hear are as imaginative and hilarious as you'd expect, and the very Jewish sense of humour here can be seen to be a clear influence on some of Woody Allen's more broadly comedic films.

The film itself also works well as a satire of early 20th Century politics and war. The problem I had with it however, was that comic delivery has improved somewhat since 1933, as funny as Groucho is, there is a slackness to his delivery that would be razor-sharp and machine gun rapid if this were made today, and some of Chico and Harpo's sight gags were so stupid that they bordered on unbearable (how many times can you use a pair of scissors cutting something as a joke and it still be funny?).

Perhaps I just prefer Chaplin, but there is a timelessness to Chaplin's best work, something that I cannot say about this film.