The Cocoanuts

"The Cocoanuts" is the very first film the Marx Brothers did and is essentially a filmed recording of their Broadway triumph. Talkies were still in their infancy, and the technical aspects of this flick prove it! The camera can barely keep up with the boys as they leap around. But don't let the staginess and crummy musical interludes and subplots distract you... this film has some of the great moments in Marx comedy. Chico is especially aggressive with his lines (he just annoys the hell out of Groucho, foiling his plan to rig an auction with his denseness) and Harpo (with his original red wig, which films dark brown) has never been better, destroying the hotel lobby by eating buttons off bellboy's uniforms and swilling ink. Groucho has some of his most potent insults. Zeppo, surprisingly, has even less to do here than in subsequent outings. This film is hilarious and head-and-shoulders above their later MGM films like "Go West" and "At the Circus." Funny, funny, funny!

The creative talents of George S. Kaufman, Irving Berlin, and the Brothers Marx went into the production of the Broadway musical The Cocoanuts which ran for 216 shows in the 1925-1926 season. Of the talent involved it was the Marx Brothers who came out the winners.

George S. Kaufman was one of the great wits of the last century, but so were the Marx Brothers. They ad-libbed and eliminated much of Kaufman's well turned prose and things were pretty tense between him and the brothers on Broadway. He also did not like a certain song that Berlin wanted to use in The Cocoanuts and Berlin took it from the show after Kaufman ragged on him. The song was Always. The Cocoanuts was the first book musical that Irving Berlin ever wrote, he did mostly reviews before The Cocoanuts. It also is the only one without a single hit song from it.

But as a Marx Brothers comedy it made the Brothers reputations. The plot such as it is concerns the boom in Florida real estate in which a lot of people got wealthy and a lot lost their shirts, though not quite in the way Basil Ruysdael does when Harpo and Chico take it off his back while he's trying to frisk them in his duties as the house detective.

The Cocoanuts was shot at the Paramount Astoria studio in Queens and used a lot of Broadway performers in the roles. Besides the Brothers, only Margaret Dumont and Basil Ruysdael came over from the Broadway cast. But Oscar Shaw and Mary Eaton had well established reputations on Broadway. Kay Francis is in the cast as the bad girl and she certainly went on to a substantial Hollywood career.

The main thing The Cocoanuts has going for it besides the Marx Brothers is the fact it is a filmed record of a Twenties era Broadway musical. Paramount made very few concessions in adapting The Cocoanuts to the screen. What we see is filmed play. Historic, but I fear not as entertaining as the later work of the Marx Brothers.

It's been suggested by more than one intelligent film critic that the Golden Age of movie comedies ended with the arrival of sound. Probably the earliest definitive refutation of that is this 1929 film introducing motion-picture audiences to the Marx Brothers.

The great Florida land boom has yet to hit the swampy resort town of Coconut Beach, where hotel owner Mr. Hammer (Groucho) and his assistant (Zeppo) deal with a paucity of paying guests and a platoon of bellhops who haven't been paid in weeks. Hammer manages to placate them ("You wanna be wage slaves? And what makes wage slaves? Wages!") but finds two new arrivals (Chico and Harpo) less easy to sucker while he tries to marry into the wealthy arms of the widow Mrs. Potter (Margaret Dumont).

It may be the Marxes' least revered film from their Zeppo period, but this, the earliest surviving comedy of theirs, provides more than quaint curio appeal or historic interest. It's a nice transfer of their stage act, using one of their successful Broadway plays with nifty direction by Robert Florey and Joseph Santley. While hobbled by early sound technology, there are plenty of neat camera tricks and a less static composition than on offer in the next, more heralded, Marx Brothers film, "Animal Crackers," with overhead shots and cutaways. And the antic wordplay, especially from Groucho, is so fast and dense it provides fresh laughs even after five or six screenings.

I even like the singing and dancing, especially an opening number, shot on a soundstage in Queens, N.Y. but dressed to resemble either Florida or a Haircut 100 video. The "let-us-entertain-you" spirit on ample evidence here evokes a fast-fading pre-Depression giddiness where flappers with wide hips and small chests bat eyes at derby-wearing men glad for the attention.

The Brothers themselves don't really need the help, their craft honed to perfection on stage that they clearly know where the laughs are. Groucho and Chico perform one of their classic routines, the "Viaduct/Why A Duck" number, while Harpo does some prime gurning and props his knee upon every passing dame (and some guys).

Groucho takes a look at Chico and Harpo's lone suitcase when they check in.

"That bag's empty!"

"We fill it up before we leave," answers Chico.

The most glaring weakness of "Cocoanuts" is a lamer-than-usual romantic subplot. Allan Jones and Kitty Carlisle slowed things down in "Night At The Opera," but at least they could sing, unlike Mary Eaton and Oscar Shaw, whose caterwauling here may attract dogs to your doorstep from a mile away. Irving Berlin's score is amazing…for its inanity. Though "Monkey-Doodle-Doo" isn't quite as bad as its title, it sounds like "Blue Skies" compared to "When My Dreams Come True" a lifeless ballad reprised five (!) times in the picture, including twice by Harpo (once each on oboe and harp).

Dumont is not yet the presence she became in later Marx films, but Kay Francis offers an attractive foil to the Boys as a designing woman who bites off more than she can chew trying to make a stooge of Harpo. Audiences may start off thinking Basil Ruysdael is just another straight man playing a suspicious cop, but the joke's on us, as we discover by the end.

Speaking of straight men, this may be Zeppo's finest film, if you go along with those who argue he was the master of minimalist comedy, serving up subtle metahumor in the face of his brothers' hi-jinks by literally doing nothing on screen. Not until "Night At The Opera," in which he set a new standard by not appearing at all, would Zeppo be quite this masterful again.

A lot of people don't find The Cocoanuts to be as entertaining as some of the later Marx Brothers films. Maybe not, but it definitely comes close. Personally, I thought this was the Marx Brothers' fifth best film. It's not that it's bad, because it great, but it's just not as good as some of the others, that's all.

As several other people have said, it really doesn't stand up technically as well as most of the others, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the script, which is just great. I truly believe that if I had seen this in 1929, I would have been as hooked on the Marxes as I am now.

There are many great bits in this movie, including the first scene between Groucho and Chico, the Auction, the connected bedroom thing, and the first time we ever see Groucho do his thing with Margaret Dumont. But the only scene in this movie to make my personal Ten Best Marx Scenes is the Why-A-Duck routine. Genius, it's just pure genius. That's my only word for it.

Harpo really doesn't have a lot of good stuff in this movie. He's great in what he doesn't have, but he really shines in Monkey Business and Duck Soup. Those are his two best performances, if you ask me. If you are looking for classic Harpo, I'd suggest watching either of those. Also, Zeppo, obviously, has nothing to do. But then, what did you expect?

This movie has a few actually rather unfunny spots in it, but you can blame that on the fact that this is the brothers' first movie, and they are still getting used to the camera. But it has a lot more comedy than non-comedy and is still a whole lot better than most of the "comedies" that are coming out nowadays.

This may sound a little strange, but if you have never seen a Marx Brothers movie, I suggest watching this one first. It's a lot more enjoyable if you aren't expecting it to be equal to Duck Soup or Animal Crackers. Because it's not. But, as I can not stress enough, it is still worth checkout, and better than than anything they did post-A Night at the Opera.

Well, it's the Marx Brothers best movie of the 20's, anyway.

8/10

The Marx Brothers first motion picture and Paramount's first "all talking, all singing, all dancing" musical will delight fans of the Marx Brothers, musicals and early cinema alike. While dated and somewhat stagey, after all it *was* basically a filmed version of their hit Broadway show, it holds up better than many films of its day. Kaufman and Ryskind, who also wrote the stage show, wrote the screenplay with an eye to making the Marx Brothers wit appear spontaneous and natural. I remember how shocked I was when I first realized the boys were using a script!

The movie is laced with classics of Marxian comedy. The famous "Why a duck?" scene with Groucho and Chico (remember - it's pronounced Chick-o, not Cheek-o, because he was such a womanizer), Groucho answering the telephone at the hotel's front desk (Ice water? Ice water? Peel some onions. That'll make your eyes water.) and Harpo shaking hands with the house detective while all of the hotel silverware falls out of his coat pockets.

Margaret Dumont is priceless as the clueless matron. She claimed in later years it wasn't an act; she really had no idea what the brothers were doing. Regardless, she is the ideal foil for the boys as they tear into "polite" society.

Take a look at The Cocoanuts. You'll see the wellspring from which all that Marx madness flows.

Jon Brian Waugh