Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana
Only a genius can come up with stuff like that. I just love his off-the-wall humour
One hunded years ago this week on May 7 1915, a U-boat of the Imperial German navy torpedoed the vast ocean liner known as the RMS Lusitania – with 1,962 people on board over a thousand civilians drowned, including many from the US, which was then still neutral in World War One. Groucho Marx in Duck Soup Groucho Marx in Duck …
I can't pick just one.
Chico and particularly Harpo, were virtuoso musicians, but Groucho was a virtuoso with repartee. Of all the monochrome masters, the Marx Brothers have pole position for me. As a child I sat and watched the films with my Granny - along with Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Hope and Crosby, but as a middle aged man it's the Marx Brothers box set I have on my shelves.
Many a stand up comedian, and many a writer, acknowledge their debt to the Marx Brothers, and Groucho's attitude in particular. Many have got close, but I don't think anyone has surpassed Groucho with his effortless ability to charm, surprise, and just plain make folk laugh.
Thanks for reminding me to get Duck Soup out on this moist Mayday Monday
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For me, the real beauty of Groucho's humour was his ability to deliver pointed comments and and barbed jokes without ever having to resort to foul language. There is a lesson there that I wish some of the current batch of so-called stand-up comedians would learn from!
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Agreed, "The Big Store", while perhaps a cut above some of the other lesser titles, doesn't merit inclusion with the greats. Though I did sort of like "A Night in Casablanca"; wasn't that the one with "Do you have milk fed chickens? Well, squeeze one and bring me a glass." Perhaps not, memory fades. As does taste. I've known more than one person, including a young woman whom I used to date, who refused to watch Los. Bros. Marx because they were in B&W. Groucho would've taken that idiocy and run, I tells ya.
The Big Store was dreadful?
Oh come on.
"Shoot the talcum to me, Malcolm"?
"The bassinet with a built-in lullaby", 40 years before Victoria Wood's "sockette with a built-in wolf whistle"?
.....whose wife was working for one of the large film companies during the 1930's who confronted the guy who had cuckolded him in the company car park and shot him in the testicles (ouch). Groucho apparently responded upon hearing the news by saying "he wasn't shot in the car park, he was shot in the amusement arcade".
Shyster Flywheel and Shyster (the BBC remakes) may be the first way some people come across them, but digging on to the movies and just some of Groucho's rapid-fire is worth it :)
Another election season quote:
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."
Not political, but a favourite - ""One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know.""
I love Groucho. What a nice remembrance. The article has the day of his death wrong. It's August 19th. His death was overshadowed by that of Elvis Presley, who died three days earlier. A great book I just finished about his final days is "Raised Eyebrows", by Steve Stoliar.
I saw him perform at Carnage Hall in the 60's - it was magical.
He told the story of how they went from vaudeville to stage to movies. Groucho insulted a very important Vaudeville theater owner & the Marx Bros could not get booked anywhere. But Chico had lost a ton of money gambling with a guy that owned a string of legitimate theaters. The guy told Chico to turn their act into a play & he would book them so he could pay off his debt. That play was "Coconuts" & things were going great, so well they produced a couple more plays. But Groucho pissed off some important guy & they couldn't get booked any more. But Chico had lost a ton of money playing cards with some big shot in Hollywood who suggested they film their stage plays so that they would have money to pay him off.