Customer Reviews

Marx Brothers Sing & Play

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

 

 

If you are a true Marx brothers fan, then you MUST own this collection! This 3 CD set features all the music from the first 11 Marx films. The quality of the recordings is terrific, and very well edited. The liner notes are a little strange, but if you're already a hardcore Marxist (my favorite typo on the set is "Sweat Adeline" instead of "Sweet Adeline"!), then you know the music by heart anyway. Worth buying just to hear Groucho sing "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" and "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady". Chico and Harpo are well represented, with classics such as "Everyone Says I Love You" and "Why Am I So Romantic?" These tunes show off their respective talents very nicely. Just a great collection. Pick this one up while you still can.

Harpo's harp solos are some of my all time favorite music. (The Harpo CD, elsewhere on Amazon[com], is a jazz band with Harpo. Not harp solos, unfortunately.)

Additionally, most of the other songs in their films are everything from fun to uplifting.

The sound quality in these CDs could easily be improved with CEDAR. But for their age, most of them are still pretty good.

If you like any of the music in the Marx Brothers movies you will love this collection.

If you're a Marx Brothers afficionado, you should consider this collection. It contains all of the music (as well as a bit of dialog) from the Marx Brothers' first 11 films ("A Night In Casablanca" and "Love Happy" are not represented). The transfers are excellent and the editing is pretty good too. However, the liner notes are a bit bizarre, and information on individual pieces is woefully incomplete, so if you own a decent copy of each of these movies on video, this collection is probably not necessary (especially realizing that the musical scenes in Marx Brothers movies are the average person's cue to hit the fast-forward button). But if you're a completist, or you really do enjoy the music and don't want to bother making your own "Marx Mix" on CD or cassette, this collection is for you.