Watched Duck Soup last night, and I'm sorry, but I just do not find the Marx Brothers funny. Groucho has some really great lines but his lightning-fast delivery just makes it all fall flat, more recitation than comeback. Chico...just does a silly Italian accent. Harpo is just incredibly annoying and unfunny. Zeppo is such a non-entity that he doesn't matter. I know how culturally significant they are, how being that anarchic and surreal in the 30s was incredbily ahead of its time, but...it has to be funny as well, and I'd much rather watch Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy, because they're at least funny. Groucho's schtick would probably be funnier on paper than it is when he delivers it, despite that ingenious greasepaint moustache, and even the famous and yes, quite brilliant mirror sequence gets drawn out too long and falls apart towards the end. As for the glib, childish impression of war, calling that ingenious satire is like calling a packet of crisps fine cuisine. Not impressed.
And why Salvador Dalí thought Harpo was some kind of angel I really do not know.
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