Above is a recreation of the first scene of the Marx Brothers' I'll Say She Is. This was their first Broadway hit, which was never adapted for the movies, although Monkey Business did reuse the dueling Chevalier imitations.
Notably, the first Marx Brother we hear speaking is Zeppo. He's confident, he's got good delivery. His only problem is the material. He gets all the generic lines. So even before Hollywood made him the not-funny one, he didn't have much opportunity to cut up. Groucho once reported telling a producer that they were twice as funny without Zeppo, thus ending his time with them on-screen. Maybe the act just worked better with three that with two. And maybe it was a bad time to be the baby of the family.
2 comments:
Yes, poor Zeppo always did fall a bit flat when compared with 'the boys'. You can't help but feel kind of sorry for him.
This was a great find. Whenever we need some cheering up it's always a joy to spend an evening watching one of their movies.
He subbed for Groucho in the stage version of Animal Crackers, and Groucho himself had nice things to say about it. I have to wonder if he might have had a comedy career on his own. It's just that his brothers didn't need him in the act.
Their movies hold up so well it's hard to believe.
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