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The MGM big-top has since Freaks become too plush, it's up to the Marx Brothers to deflate the tent: Florence Rice warbles "Step Up and Take a Bow" to a thoroughbred until Harpo enters the arena in leopard tights, a lion snarls at him and the feline head dangling from his crotch responds in kind. The owner (Kenny Baker) takes time off from romantic duets to fret over mortgage money, advice from Chico ("Whenever you got business trouble, the best thing to do is to get a lawyer. Then you got more trouble, but at least you got a lawyer") brings in Groucho's J. Cheever Loophole, "legal eagle." A train ride accommodates the menagerie of strongmen, dwarves, gorillas and ostriches for the benefit of Hitchcock's Saboteur, capped with a gag of miniature furniture and oversized sneezes. The investigation leads to Eve Arden in a peignoir ("I'll grill her until she's well done"), the challenge is extracting a wallet from her décolletage while hanging upside down from the ceiling ("There must be some way of getting the money without getting in trouble with the Hays Office"). The model for Edward Buzzell's direction might be the magician's old coat with deep pockets of comic marvels, from Nat Pendleton's curly-wigged muscle to Groucho's swift Dada punctuations ("Patois!" "Hors d'oeuvre!") and beguiling rendition of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady." Margaret Dumont arrives late at the bash, but just in time to get licked by a giraffe and fired out of a canon. "Don't let's rush to concussions!" Fritz Feld's orchestra floating away is an image remembered by Kusturica. With James Burke, Jerry Maren, and Barnett Parker. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |