“DUCK SOUP.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 3

“DUCK SOUP.”

Four Marx Brothers in Hilarious Comedy. Ruth Chatterton plays an unusuil role in “ Female/’ the drama which heads the current programme at the Crystal Palace Theatre. “ Duck Soup,” featuring the mile-a-minute nonsense of the four Marx Brothers, will be the headline attraction at the Crystal Palace Theatre on Saturda}'. Helpless stupidity and reckless clowning, careless blundering and ludicrous love-making, all help to make their latest film a comedy success. Each of the brothers retains the individuality with which theatregoers are familiar—Groucho, with his mouthorgan moustache, long cigar and goldrimmed spectacles; Harpo, with his curly blond “ mop,” pop eyes and dumb lips; Chico, with his clownish hat an'! metaphorical dumbness; and Zeppo, of that handsome normalcy in such contrast to the others. The plot is necessarily farcical. Any picture with Groucho as the leader of a republic must be a riot—in this production it means a war. A critic writes:—“The espionage efforts of Chico and Harpo were politically futile but comically successful. For a prolonged ‘ dumb ’ scene, the sight of two impostors, each calling himself Groucho and each tr>--ing to convince himself that he is looking in a mirror, is certainly a clever piece of work. This is one of the outstanding parts in a picture so crowded with laughs that the memory is taxed to recall a single chuckle. It would be almost impossible to find a film scenario which did not contain what would be ‘ chestnuts ’ to some of a mixed audience, but in consideration of the rapid fire of cross-talk in ‘ Duck Soup,’ the proportion of original jokes is commendably large, and the ‘ gags ’ the four clowns inflict on one another are all fresh.” Box plans at the D.I.C.