CRAZY MARX BROTHERS

Southland Times, Issue 24039, 1 February 1940, Page 5

CRAZY MARX BROTHERS

Comedians On And Off The Screen

The Marx Brothers rate among the most consistent “one-a-year” stars in Hollywood. Their first picture, “The Cocoanuts,” was released in 1929, and their ninth, “At the Circus,” has now been completed. The casualty list with Marxian directors and leading ladies runs very high. When Eddie Buzzell was indiscreet enough, the first day on the set of “At the Circus,” to make some comment about “really acting this scene,” Groucho retorted, “The Marx Brothers will do anything but act; if you warn dramatics, use our.stand-ins.” Buzzell managed, with the aid ot smoked glasses and a liberal supply of aspirin, to stagger through the production, leaving for Europe the night the final scenes were made. That evening he was invited to meet his stars for a farewell snack, at an address on Hollywood Boulevard. When he arrived, the rendezvous proved to be a mortuary chapel, where coffee and cakes were solemnly served. SHOCKS FOR DIRECTOR Buzzell had never quite recovered, anyway, from the episode that happened the second week of production, when a bewhiskered messenger boy rode up on the set where the director was impatiently awaiting the arrival of the trio. The boy handed over the telegram. Buzzell tore it open. It was signed Groucho, Chico and Harpo, and read: “Have decided to take short vacation in Honolulu. Hope to be back in a month.” When the director started to reel, the messenger tore off his whiskers and revealed himself as Chico. Sam Wood, when he heard of the incident, came over to offer condolences and reminded his successor of the tim'that Chico lifted a five-dollar bill from his wallet and, when he was apprehended, returned the money in pennies. On another occasion the Marxes learned that Wood was receiving a bottle

’of mid-morning milk on his set, and left orders that thereafter it be delivered in a baby’s nursing bottle. No leading lady has managed to survive more than one Marx picture. The public may draw its own inferences. The list includes Mary Eaton, Lillian Roth, Ruth Hall, Florine McKinney, Raquel Torres, Kitty Carlisle, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ann Millei’ and Florence Rice, who appears as an equestrienne in “At the Circus.” Miss Rice was initiated into the Marx Leading Lady Club the first day of work when the comedians locked her in the gorilla cage and left her there an hour. THE JOKE THAT FAILED The Marxes were hoist by their own petard, however, at least once during filming of the new picture. During a fight scene Harpo decided it would be more realistic, and much more disconcerting, for the property men and clean-up brigade, if he filled his mouth with feathers, and spouted them out in all directions, hippo-fashion. The feathers were brought, Harpo cached an enormous quantity, then Chica unexpectedly thumped him on the back. A doctor had to be summoned to untangle things and remove some of the feathers that lodged themselves in Harpo’s throat. There is one member of the Marx production unit who has shown truly Herculean ability to survive the hazards of ribbing, robbing, thumping, tripping and indiscriminate rough-house through the past 13 years. She is Margaret Dumont, the patrician-looking society lady who appears as a perennial foil for Groucho’s gasconading imperti'nence. Years ago she got used to such bits of good clean fun as Groucho whispering madly for his cue and Harpo or Chico thrusting a billiard stick out from the wings, which always managed to miss its target and strike her.