Ep 169 – Dish a Heaping Helping of Duck Soup
GROUCHO as Rufus T. Firefly, Dictator of Freedonia … the only man to know both the President’s and the Farmer’s daughter. CHICO, who swears Admiral Dewey took Vanilla. HARPO as Snoopy the Spy, who shadows so many suspects he becomes afraid of his own shadow. ZEPPO, voting for a standing army to save Freedonia money on chairs.
Duck Soup
Duck Soup is a Marx brothers film. Groucho stars as Rufus T. Firefly as a dictator of a bankrupt (fabricated) country, Freedonia. The country declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of his wealthy backer Mrs. Teasdale. The film is directed by Leo McCreary. Leo McCarey told Cahiers du cinema in 1967: “I don’t like (Duck Soup) so much…I never chose to shoot this film. The Marx Brothers absolutely wanted me to direct them in a film. I refused. Then they got angry with the studio, broke their contract and left. Believing myself secure, I accepted the renewal of my own contract with the studio. Soon, the Marx Brothers were reconciled with (Paramount)…and I found myself in the process of directing the Marx Brothers. The most surprising thing about this film was that I succeeded in not going crazy, for I really did not want to work with them: they were completely mad.” (Source: IMDB.com) It is the final film that the Marx Brothers made with Paramount pictures before they went to . It is said that Italian dictator Benito Mussolini banned the film from Italy because he thought it was a direct attack on him. When news of this reached The Marx Brothers, they were reportedly ecstatic.
Timecodes
- 00:00 – DMP Ad
- :30 – Introduction
- :46 – The Film Facts
- 3:09 – Pick Up Line
- 5:20 – What we thought of the film
- 13:27 – Head Trauma
- 14:01 – Smoochie, Smoochie, Smoochie
- 14:18 – Driving Review
- 14:58 – To the Numbers
Next week’s film will be Maltese Falcon (1941)
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