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A Day at the Races, 1937
Dr. Hugo Hackenbush (Groucho Marx) is hired to work at a flagging sanitarium in order to attract the patronage of the wealthy Mrs. Upjohn (Margaret Dumont). The problem is: Hackenbush is not really a medical man, he's a horse doctor. The sanitarium is owned by a young woman named Judy (Maureen O'Sullivan) and a local singer named Gil (Allan Jones) is determined to help her by buying a racehorse. But Judy's evil landlord, Morgan (Douglass Dumbrille) is determined to see the sanitarium shut down so that he can convert it into a casino.
This was generally an enjoyable comedy, with the usual highs and lows that I'm coming to expect from the Marx brothers.
On the plus side, yes, the patented quick banter, such as when someone asserts that the medicine he's giving Mrs. Upjohn is a horse pill, and Hackenbush retorts "You have nothing to worry about. The last patient I gave one of those to won the Kentucky Derby!" My favorite bit of writing/acting actually came from a scene in which Hackenbush goes to dinner with a woman named Flo (Esther Muir), who is meant to entrap Hackenbush in a compromising position. Flo speaks with a clipped "upper class" voice, and every time she says "thank you", Hackenbush responds with a similarly clipped Thank you. It's a running joke that didn't get old for the entire sequence.
There are also some signature physical comedy routines, especially a sequence where Chico and Harpo (playing a sanitarium worker and a jockey, respectively) frantically repaper a room to conceal Hackenbush and Flo from Mrs. Upjohn.
On the downside, yup, more groping women as comedy! And because she's a woman we don't like, she's not only groped, but slapped on the rear end on her way out of the room. Cool. Another woman is groped even more extensively AND her clothes are pulled off in a later scene, which naturally sexually arouses two of the three protagonists. And while I realize this is a screwball comedy, a man pretending to be a doctor including giving someone medications kind of gives me the heebies.
I also didn't care for the stunts involving the horse, which repeatedly involved it kicking out at hard objects like wagon wheels and wooden planks. I just cringed through all of those sequences. It didn't feel like animal acting---that horse seemed genuinely distressed at times and it was really unpleasant to watch.
I did like the singing and performance sequences, largely thanks to a really neat ballet number featuring Vivien Fay. While some of the songs were a bit slow for me, none of them grated or way overstayed their welcome.
A sequence I'm very mixed on involves the last act, in which Hackenbush and his associates are on the run and end up in a poor Black community. On the plus side, the Black characters are actually played by Black actors, including a highlighted singing performance from Ivie Anderson. There are lots of bug-eyed reaction shots, which of course have some negative associations, but don't feel as horribly out of place in the context of the over-the-top film. The song and dance number in the barn is certainly the performance highlight of the movie. Of course we can't escape blackface, but I appreciated that there's a reaction shot of one of the Black dancers looking at them like "Really?" and then they are immediately spotted by their pursuers because of course three white men with grease smeared on their faces don't actually look like Black people. It's not terrible, but every nice thing about it has to be prefaced with "For the time . . .".
A good comedy that mostly overcomes its squicky premise with quick banter and a strong last act.
A Day at the Races, 1937
Dr. Hugo Hackenbush (Groucho Marx) is hired to work at a flagging sanitarium in order to attract the patronage of the wealthy Mrs. Upjohn (Margaret Dumont). The problem is: Hackenbush is not really a medical man, he's a horse doctor. The sanitarium is owned by a young woman named Judy (Maureen O'Sullivan) and a local singer named Gil (Allan Jones) is determined to help her by buying a racehorse. But Judy's evil landlord, Morgan (Douglass Dumbrille) is determined to see the sanitarium shut down so that he can convert it into a casino.
This was generally an enjoyable comedy, with the usual highs and lows that I'm coming to expect from the Marx brothers.
On the plus side, yes, the patented quick banter, such as when someone asserts that the medicine he's giving Mrs. Upjohn is a horse pill, and Hackenbush retorts "You have nothing to worry about. The last patient I gave one of those to won the Kentucky Derby!" My favorite bit of writing/acting actually came from a scene in which Hackenbush goes to dinner with a woman named Flo (Esther Muir), who is meant to entrap Hackenbush in a compromising position. Flo speaks with a clipped "upper class" voice, and every time she says "thank you", Hackenbush responds with a similarly clipped Thank you. It's a running joke that didn't get old for the entire sequence.
There are also some signature physical comedy routines, especially a sequence where Chico and Harpo (playing a sanitarium worker and a jockey, respectively) frantically repaper a room to conceal Hackenbush and Flo from Mrs. Upjohn.
On the downside, yup, more groping women as comedy! And because she's a woman we don't like, she's not only groped, but slapped on the rear end on her way out of the room. Cool. Another woman is groped even more extensively AND her clothes are pulled off in a later scene, which naturally sexually arouses two of the three protagonists. And while I realize this is a screwball comedy, a man pretending to be a doctor including giving someone medications kind of gives me the heebies.
I also didn't care for the stunts involving the horse, which repeatedly involved it kicking out at hard objects like wagon wheels and wooden planks. I just cringed through all of those sequences. It didn't feel like animal acting---that horse seemed genuinely distressed at times and it was really unpleasant to watch.
I did like the singing and performance sequences, largely thanks to a really neat ballet number featuring Vivien Fay. While some of the songs were a bit slow for me, none of them grated or way overstayed their welcome.
A sequence I'm very mixed on involves the last act, in which Hackenbush and his associates are on the run and end up in a poor Black community. On the plus side, the Black characters are actually played by Black actors, including a highlighted singing performance from Ivie Anderson. There are lots of bug-eyed reaction shots, which of course have some negative associations, but don't feel as horribly out of place in the context of the over-the-top film. The song and dance number in the barn is certainly the performance highlight of the movie. Of course we can't escape blackface, but I appreciated that there's a reaction shot of one of the Black dancers looking at them like "Really?" and then they are immediately spotted by their pursuers because of course three white men with grease smeared on their faces don't actually look like Black people. It's not terrible, but every nice thing about it has to be prefaced with "For the time . . .".
A good comedy that mostly overcomes its squicky premise with quick banter and a strong last act.