Duck Soup (1933)

Directed by Leo McCarey
Starring The Marx Brothers, Margaret DuMont and Raquel Torres
Produced by Paramount Pictures

So what happens when the Marx Brothers stick to a coherent storyline with characters that are relatively consistent firing off jokes that don't overstay their welcome?

You get a pretty good comedy.

Duck Soup sets up Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly, recently installed as the leader of Freedonia. The country wanted to borrow money from Mrs. Teesdale to avoid a tax increase and she will only agree so long as Firefly is in charge.


One of Firefly's first acts is to insult the ambassador from Sylvania.  The rest of the film sees the two countries threatening war, only to reach a diplomatic solution that Firefly inadvertently sabotages.

Zeppo has only the tiniest of roles as Firefly's secretary. Chico and Harpo are Sylvanian spies attempting to get Freedonia's war plans. You would think this task would be easy as Firefly impulsively makes Chico his Secretary of War. But this is a Marx Brothers movie so nothing comes easy.

There is some fun political commentary throughout this set up from Chico's peanut vendor being elevated to Firefly's cabinet to the country's leader firing on his own people.  When the countries finally go to war, it is basically to sate a couple of people's egos.

Beyond that, there are the trademark gags. The best sees Harpo dressed as Groucho acting as his mirror image in a doorway.  There are moments you think you know what's going to happen, but then it goes a different direction.

That said, Harpo continues to be the weak link for me. He's a being of pure chaos, but he is given to some of the most predictable and agonizingly long bits. There's a repetition to what he does, particularly in a scene with a rival street vendor.  I find myself annoyed every time he enters a scene.

It's been a long slog of Marx Brothers films, but Duck Soup marks the first I actually enjoy.  I think the film's strengths underline what I have disliked in the past. It's tighter and more focused.  I am definitely not ready to hop on the Marx bandwagon, but I am enjoying it drive by.

Final Score:
B

Quantifying Cinemania: Summer 2013 vs. 2014

So this article starts with a random thought....

A year and half ago, movie reviewers were focused on two summers: 2013 with Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel and Star Trek The Wrath of Totally Not-Khan Into Darkness, and 2015 which brings Star Wars Episode VII and Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World.  Our current summer was the forgotten middle child.

Or so we thought.

A funny thing has happened in the ensuing 18 months.  Summer 2013 kinda sucked.  And this summer has been kind of great.

At least that's my own impression of things.Nothing I looked forward to last year delivered. Everything I anticipated this year has been solid if not spectacular.  And the "eye test" of other movie reviews seemed to suggest the same.  But is my gut accurate?

Time to bring in some numbers.



To start, I took what were advertised as the biggest releases in May and June of both 2013 and 2014.  The list looked like this:

2013

• Iron Man 3
• The Great Gatsby
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• The Hangover Part III
• Fast & Furious 6
• Epic
• After Earth
• The Internship
• The Purge
• This Is the End
• Man of Steel
• World War Z
• Monsters University
• The Heat
• White House Down

2014

• Amazing Spider-man 2
• Neighbors
• Godzilla
• Million Dollar Arm
• X-Men: Days of Future Past
• Blended
• Malificent
• A Million Ways to Die in the West
• Edge of Tomorrow
• The Fault in Our Stars
• 22 Jump Street
• How to Train Your Dragon 2
• Think Like a Man 2
• Jersey Boys
• Transformers: Age of Extinction

I then averaged the Rotten Tomatoes scores for the movies from each year.  So far, 2014 films are averaging 2.87 percentage points higher on Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer.  Not a massive difference but still a difference.

What's more interesting to me though is the range of scores.  Last summer's highest scoring film in June and July was Star Trek Into Darkness with 87%, followed by This Is the End with 83%.  Everything else is below 80%. In contrast to that, 2014 has seen 3 movies with RT scores of 90% or higher (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Edge of Tomorrow, and How to Train Your Dragon 2), with 22 Jump Street and The Fault in Our Stars in the 80s.  There are simply more quality movies this summer (at least based on this data).

The rest of the numbers are remarkably similar.  Of the 15 films from each year, 7 are certified rotten at this point.  Both years have 2 films below 20% (ugh).  

Obviously, Rotten Tomatoes has limitations as a data source, but it's not a bad starting point.  If a movie summer is defined by its best films, so far 2014 is eating 2013's lunch.  Wouldn't it be fascinating if this year turned out to be the classic movie year we were all expecting last year and anticipating next year.

What are your thoughts?  Other sources of info to use?  Films you think should be on or off these lists?  Is this a useful exercise?