Customer Reviews

The Cocoanuts [The Marx Brothers]

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excuse me, dear Amazonian friends, but how long do we have to be subjected to that kind of abusive prices for used DVD's before you come up with the definitive Marx Brothers Complete DVD Collection? There are only 13 movies and scores of fans waiting for the remastered versions. Count me in for the first set.

Despite its technically inferior sound and variable print quality, "The Cocoanuts" (1929) remains a cinematic landmark. It was the first musical-comedy captured on film and, most importantly, introduced the Marx Brothers to the big screen. Though shot within the stage-bound confines of Paramount's Astoria studio, directors Robert Florey and Joseph Santley manage to incorporate stylish visual touches that complement the anarchic spirit of Groucho, Harpo, Chico and (briefly) Zeppo. As a result, "The Cocoanuts" lacks the stiffness and claustrophobia that plagued many 1929 talkies. Admittedly, there are a few slow stretches, since the filmmakers and performers hadn't quite mastered the pacing and timing of early sound comedy (notice the Groucho-Margaret Dumont exchanges). Still, the film moves at a pretty good clip (except for the forgettable musical interludes with Mary Eaton and Oscar Shaw) while showcasing some of the Marxes' best routines. Harpo, in particular, is brilliant and remarkably inventive throughout. Groucho has plenty of memorable dialogue, but his portrayal of Mr. Hammer is no match for Captain Spaulding or Rufus T. Firefly. Chico, of course, represents the ideal visual-verbal counterpart for Harpo and Groucho, even though his character is more belligerent than usual. And poor Zeppo would have better opportunities in his remaining film appearances. Flaws and all, "The Cocoanuts" survives as a fine introduction to Marxian madness.

Although THE JAZZ SINGER was appeared in 1927, it took a while for talking films to truly get off the ground, and most THE COCOANUTS remains the only talking film made before 1930 that still is seen with any regularity. Technically, this is a very rough movie. The sound is truly rough, and at times it does diminish the enjoyment of the movie. But fortunately, enough of the anarchistic energy manages to shine through and makes this a thoroughly delightful film despite the limitations of the sound. The most famous onscreen evidence of the problems they had with sound at the time was the over sensitivity the microphones had to higher pitched sounds. As a result, all paper had to be soaked in water to prevent the microphones from picking up the crackling noises it made. In the famous Why a Duck? skit, Groucho has in his possession the most improbably droopy map one could ever imagine encountering.

The Marx Brothers were the last of the great vaudeville comic acts to make it to the silver screen. The reason is obvious: while many vaudevillians for whom the spoken word was important managed great silent screen careers, the Marx Brothers relied enormously on speech. Although Groucho was a fine physical comedian, his act was impossible without words; Harpo could easily dispense with sound, but even he whistled, honked, and played the Harp, and much of his humor was framed by the words of others, either friends or enemies; and Chico, who was the only one of the three main brothers who was ungifted in physical humor, would have been completely at sea without being able to speak his indecipherable concoction of Italian. The Brothers were seasoned veterans when THE COCOANUTS was filmed (Chico was 42, Harpo 41, and Groucho 39), and the film itself was an adaptation of a production they had performed on Broadway. Their act translated almost seamlessly onto film, with only a couple of exceptions. For instance, this is the only Marx Brother film in which Harpo wore the red wig that he had long worn in their act. The reason is that it ended up looking brownish instead of red. He switched to a blonde wig, and he wore that color.

The film was filmed in Long Island during their run of ANIMAL CRACKERS on Broadway. One of the better decisions was to have Margaret Dumont reprise her Broadway role as Groucho's comic foil in this film (she would appear in seven Marx Brothers films in all, including Mrs. Rittenhouse, whom she was portraying at the time in ANIMAL CRACKERS on Broadway). As great as the Brothers all are, there is no question that their films would have been greatly diminished without her and Groucho's classic "love scenes" (for want of a better description).

The film is still a delight to watch because the Marx Brothers have so many marvelous scenes. The auction scene, Groucho's surreal attempts at making love to Margaret Dumont ("Your eyes, your eyes, they shine like the pants of a blue serge suit. That's not a reflection on you - it's on the pants"), the first of Groucho and Chico's great conversations, Harpo's anarchy, all blend together to create the first great talking film. There is one moment I especially love. A woman is crying and Harpo slowly comes up to her, compassion welling up in his face. He reaches over and offers her a lollypop. She throws her arms around him and sobs. One of Harpo's nicest, if somewhat uncharacteristic, moments.

Paramount literally plucked the Brothers off the Broadway stage to film one of the first sound musical films. The Brothers were performing in Animal Crackers on Broadway at night and rushing to the Astoria Studios to film Cocoanuts during the day. When everyone makes claims that the picture is disjointed and clumsy in appearance, keep in mind that the Brothers were giving a full Broadway performance the night before. They were also re-creating antics for a movie based directly on a stage show they had taken on a huge run a year or so earlier. So, in effect they were performing two Broadway scaled shows. But movies are a slow process and this snail pace must have been excrutiating on the timing based Marxes. The Marxes, used to biding time on trains while on the Vaudeville circuit, tried to recapture their mix of good hearted and mean spirited fun during the long delays ( ie..the cameraman filmed from inside a tall box to muffle the sound of the loud camera, Busby Berkeley-type musical numbers, and no audience to gauge response-though performing Cocoanuts as they had for so long on stage, they must have had a feel for time for most anticipated laughs, but could the timing be edited correctly?) The editing is not very good, but can it be blamed on the original film, or what television has trimmed down over the years? Things to note next time you watch Cocoanuts: In The Why a Duck routine Groucho almost slips and calls Chico 'Ravelli', his character name in Animal Crackers (which they were performing at night). Harpo plays a clarinet! Groucho ~"Do you want A Swede on the third floor? Chico ~ "I'd rather have a Polock in the basement" PC there, huh? George Foley was cameraman (any John Landis fan can explain that connection) And look at Margaret Dumont's expression when Groucho tries to explain the preference of an 8 inch water pipe. If you think this humor is dated, you aren't watching close enough! With the exception of Henderson losing his shirt...George S. Kaufman's script is still a wonderful Broadway history lesson forever caught on film!

Woman: Did anyone ever tell you, you look like the Prince of Wales? Chico: Better! (Timely there, huh?

THE COCOANUTS is historically significant as one of the first all-talking, all-singing musical films. It's also significant for unleashing the Marx Brothers onto the movie going public. THE COCOANUTS gave filmgoers a taste of what had Broadway audiences rolling in the aisle and while the film suffers from the static production typical of early musicals, it remains very entertaining thanks to the brothers' anarchic comedy. Director Robert Florey did use some innovative camera shots to help overcome the staginess (i.e. part of Chico's piano solo is shot head-on through the raised piano lid; a novel touch at the time). For many years, THE COCOANUTS was only available in generally awful prints with muddy soundtracks; recently portions of the film in mint condition have come to light, so while it's not a complete restoration, the film looks and sounds better than it has in years. For all it's faults, including an oddly forgettable Irving Berlin score, THE COCOANUTS still provides plenty of laughs.

No kidding. I like the late-20s feel it has, the dancing, the slicked back hair... and the Marx Brothers, to me, are at their funniest, especially physically. I've watched it so many times I've lost count. I've memorized big chunks of the dialogue. Sure it's stagey, with its non-moving camera, but it also gives it the flavor of what it must have been like to see them on stage at that time.
"Horse Feathers" is a near second, though.

I've always thought it would be interesting to pair this film with Singing In the Rain, because all the technical glitches satirized in the later movie were very real during the production of this one. While Jolson's The Jazz Singer predates The Cocoanuts, this was the first musical to have a full-length, credit-to-credit soundtrack.

As such, it's often goofy, ludicrous, clumsily staged and badly timed. The songs are... well, what can you say about a movie that opens with a song called "The Monkey Doodle-Doo"? And all that disappears when Groucho launches into a routine, such as the famous "viaduct" ("I'm all right, how are you?") routine with his brother Chico.

An interesting piece of trivia about this movie (and others with the Marx brothers) -- having grown up in live theater, they were unable NOT to work the audience. Unfortunately, the audience on the set consisted of the stagehands, sound crew, and other technicians, who would bust up laughing and ruin the shots. Yet when the crew kept quiet, the Marx brothers assumed, almost subconsciously, that their jokes were falling flat -- so they'd make up new ones. Too bad the rushes for this film have no doubt long decomposed; it'd be a howl to see what they did *first*.

Last comment: in December 1991, while on a family holiday, I found myself driving to the town of Cocoa Beach, Florida... over a viaduct leading from the mainland. It was all I could do to keep the rental Chevy out of the surf.

Rated three stars, for Groucho, Harpo, and Chico, of course.

Sadly, Hollywood lost all of the original and production prints. This DVD apparently was assembled from a tape, itself assembled from damaged remnants. As an artifact, it reveals the almost humorously primitive film technology of early 1929. There's atrocious editing, and film quality varies wildly even within the same scenes. It's suspected that many original portions are missing. In any case, it's still grand fun, if for nothing else than a look at a plot right out of Victorian theater and a number of scenes in which on-film cuties are caught looking at the cameras. It's hard to tell today, but in '29 this was a landmark film: all-talking from beginning to end, one of the first movies with full-length audio and Paramount's very first 100% talkie. It's a fairly faithful filming of the Marx Brothers' huge Broadway stage success, done during weekdays at Paramount's Astoria, NY studio while the Marx's played their next Broadway hit at night. You can even see bits where the actors get their lines confused. The absurdist humor, though borrowed heavily from Vaudeville, was revolutionary in its day. Some of the old routines (the Viaduct and auction bits) no longer work, but there are still plenty of laughs to go around. The comedy bits set patterns for every future Marx film: rooms with multiple doors and weird entrance/exit schemes (culminating in a Night at the Opera), Chico/Groucho non-logic (later perfected in the Tootsy-Frootsy bit in A Day at the Races), musical numbers from Harpo and chico, and the earliest appearance of the priceless Margaret Dumont. Most supporting roles are taken by stage/radio stars. One of the jewel thieves is Kay Francis, a popular actress who made dozens of films and earned a symbolic star in the concrete of the Hollywood Walk of Fame (it's hard to tell here, but Kay had a speech impediment that earned her the nickname, "the wavishing Kay Fwancis"). Her partner in crime is Cyril Ring who played in many silent and sound films and finally entered the screen writing business. The hotel detective, Basil Ruysdael, was a radio, stage and film mainstay for many years, later appearing in hits like "Prince Valiant", "The Last Hurrah", Perry Mason episodes, and a voice in "1001 Dalmations". The ultimate fascination is the heartfelt but truly klutzy script by George S. Kaufman and really corny music from Irving Berlin, both of whom would later offer much, much better material. The antique choreography right out of the original play's staging is by Erna Kay, a Broadway veteran who has no other film credits -- but you'll see plenty in these comically antique production numbers that set the tone for the dance extravaganzes of the 1930's. Even with poor quality media, which is often dreadful, you can still sense the initial impact made by the Marx Brothers, who in the late 1920's took the comedy world by storm and turned it, in their inimitable way, upside-down and inside-out.

There are some terrific reviews here, almost all have a lot to say that will help anyone enjoy (or at least understand) this movie better. However, to my mind, the one element of this flick that makes it so special is its capacity for silliness--something that we in our self conscious age have almost lost as a concept. The Bro's ability to apparently TRULY NOT CARE about how those around them will react to their zaniness--like a child at its best--is disbturbing (while its amusing) because it holds up to us what we have lost while growing up. See it and set yourself free.

The Cocoanuts may not be the funniest Marx Brothers film; but it's very entertaining and enjoyable nonetheless. There's lots of fine acting and the casting was well done. The choreography impressed me greatly and the cinematography makes great early use of camera shots taken from above looking down directly at the dancers on the stage. (It actually was filmed on a stage, by the way.) In addition, the comedy is very good and there are sight gags to boot. Unfortunately, the quality of the print could be better; it's a shame that a film like this hasn't yet been restored.

When the action starts, we meet Mr. Hammer (Groucho Marx) who is the owner of a Florida hotel that isn't exactly turning a profit. In fact, the only paying customers at the hotel are the wealthy and fairly stuffy Mrs. Potter (Margaret Dumont) and her daughter Polly (Mary Eaton). Polly is in love with a young architect named Bob Adams (Oscar Shaw) and they are planning to marry against the wishes of Mrs. Potter; Mrs. Potter wants Polly to marry the very rich Harvey Yates (Cyril Ring). Unbeknownst to Mrs. Potter, Polly and the others is the fact that Harvey and his gal-pal Penelope (Kay Francis) plan to steal Mrs. Potter's expensive necklace and frame Bob for the crime so that he won't be able to marry Polly--and Polly will then have to marry Harvey.

Even though The Marx Brothers did even better, there are still many hysterically funny scenes in this movie. The auction scene where Mr. Hammer desperately tries to auction lots for fancy housing in the area is inevitably fouled up when his associate Chico (Chico Marx) doesn't get his fake bidding instructions straight; and Mr. Hammer gives us some really good laughs at the expense of poor Mrs. Potter who is the perfect "straight man" for his one-liners.

Look also for fine performances by Basil Ruysdael as Detective Hennessy; Harpo Marx who pantomimes wonderfully and plays the harp just as well; the young ladies working at Hammer's hotel who act and perform a wonderful musical number and Mary Eaton who sings her heart out on "As My Dreams Come True;" Mary also dances splendidly in this picture.

The DVD does not come with any extras; maybe they will release another edition of this movie in the future with extras. For now if you want any extra features you'll have to purchase the Marx Brothers DVD set that includes this film; and my understanding is that even that box set is somewhat lacking in extras.

The Cocoanuts is a fine Marx Brothers movie and it offers very entertaining comedy mixed with action. I recommend this for fans of the Marx Brothers; and people who enjoy screwball comedy from the early years of "talkies" would do well to add this to their collections.