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Hollywood Studio Magazine (1973)

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These were the original Marx Brothers, all four of them. Zeppo and Groucho above, Chicho and Harpo below. It is curious that this picture of the whole group was sent out by UPI Telephoto at the time of Harpo’s death, Sept. 29, 1964. Marx Brothers-from gags By Teet Carle + As a movie-goer and fan of comics, I was a staunch and loyal member of the Marx Brothers Cult. Whatever they did on the screen convulsed me. As a publicist who wrote copy, posed photos and conducted interviews with the Mad Marxes through six pictures, I gratefully enjoyed the brightest periods of a 40-year career in Hollywood. The fact that I really never liked any of them as persons (Harpo came closest) did not prevent me from considering them as among the funniest men who ever lived. On the screen! I said so in my copy and to anyone I met in private life. I cherish a couple of autographed caricatures they gave me. For the records, I was publicist on “Monkey Business,” ‘‘Horse Feathers” and “Duck Soup” at Paramount. I caught up with them when I went to MGM in 1936 after they had made “A Night at the Opera.” But I got back on their trail there for “A Day at the Races,” “At the Circus” and “Go West.” In all, the Marx Brothers (first four, then three) made thirteen movies. The six I enjoyed were enough to afford me a chance to watch the enchanting 32 HOLLYWOOD STUDIO way they made comedy work. When I first met Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo in 1931, I already was rooting loudly for them. They had made screen history starting in 1929 (their last film was 20 years later in 1949. “Love Happy”) in “The Cocoanuts” and “Animal Crackers,” made at Paramount’s Long Island studios in Astoria. What made those comedies sure-fire was the fact that they were almost exact transferences to the screen of laughs they had perfected after long runs on Broadway and during socko national tours. With others, I went around quoting their quips: “Believe me, you’ll have to get up early in the morning if you want to get out of bed.” Or singing the hypnotic lyrics of “Hooray For Captain Spaulding,” ‘Hello, hello, hello. I must be going.” The public saw the movies again and again. I recall driving past our neighborhood theatre and seeing the letters on the marquee: ‘“‘28th Return Engagement of ‘The Cocoanuts’.”’ As a publicist and a movie-buff, I entered a strange new world with the Marxes when I handled ‘‘Monkey Business.” To begin with, the studio showered the comedians with amazing comedy-writing talent. On the first movie and on “Horse Feathers”? there were the incredible S. J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone, a cartoonist who had written the boys’ first Broadway hit, “Fil Say She is.” Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (also song writers) joined Perelman and Johnstone on “Horse Feathers.” On “Duck Soup,” it was Kalmar and Ruby with Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin. It must be obvious that for a young man who revelled in comedy writing, talking with masters like those blokes was sheer ecstacy. The world (including me) kept busy repeating Marx lines. Like Groucho’s song, ““And even if you changed it, or condensed it, I’m against it.” And Chico’s puns, “‘A haddock? I take an aspirin for a haddock.” Or, while standing in a hay loft, “It’s better to have loved and loft than never to have loft at all.” Unfortunately, Harpo, the pantomimist, could not be quoted. His to riches hilarious antics had to be described: chasing blondes, eating desk blotters and drinking ink, or a long-lasting downpour of silverware dropping from his sleeve. A distinct fringe benefit other than the writers was the delightful Margaret Dumont. She had been in their first two films but did not rejoin them until “Duck Soup.” In all, she lived through seven Marx comedies. Incessantly wooed, ridiculed, manhandled and mystified by Groucho. Truth is, she was a baffled lady in real life by the Marx hi-jinx. She loved the boys but never really understood them. Following a scene in “Duck Soup,” wherein Groucho had said, “I’m fighting for your honor which is more than you ever did,” she actually asked him seriously what he meant by that line. Miss Dumont was a brilliant actress who had trained with George M. Cohan. The target for Groucho’s ‘“‘romancing’’ in the first two Hollywood flickers was the lovely Thelma Todd. I had known her from the time she was graduated with Charles “Buddy” Rogers and others from Paramount’s talent school back in 1927. Her unsolved murder