Room Service

I saw an undergraduate production of "Room Service" at the University of Rochester, and amazingly enough, it was exactly as good (I should rather say "bad") as this movie. No better, and no worse. I think it's the material. It's so mind-numbingly bland, and so typical of the period (everybody's broke...everybody wants to be on Broadway...blah blah blah), that even the great Marx Brothers couldn't make it fly.

This is the only film that was not specifically written for them, and boy, does it show. Room Service is your garden-variety 1930s comedy, so far beneath the pioneering and progressive humor of the Marx Brothers that it's absurd to even dream of shoehorning them into this pedestrian garbage. And yet they attempted it anyway.

An unfunny Groucho? God, it's unwatchable. Interesting to note that Harpo still manages to be charming, but he's quite marginalized, probably because there was no non-speaking funny man in the original play. The supporting cast consists entirely of tinned hams, and the great Lucille Ball barely features.

The action is rather too literally based on the play, so the Marx Brothers remain cooped up in a hotel room for just about the entire movie. It's about as cinematic as a trip to the laundromat, and about as exciting. Worse yet, Room Service landed the Marx Brothers in hot water with their usual production company, MGM, since they turned traitor and made this turkey with RKO. After returning to MGM, the Brothers found that their stock with the company had fallen, and their subsequent films were never as carefully made - or as good - as their earlier classics. Darn.

The movie manages a few chuckles, but is not prime material for Marx Bros. fans. One reason is that there's too much conventional logic in what the boys do, unlike their usual wacky comedic logic. Thus, there's little of the usual anarchic assault on well-ordered society that provides larger point to their madcap style.

Here the boys are trying to beat the hotel out of a big bill in order to get their stage play produced, and what they do makes perfectly good sense, though done in zany style. I get the feeling that, unlike other Marx movies, any number of good comedic actors could have replaced them to decent effect. Also, journeyman director Seiter fails to bring the zaniness to the kind of madcap boil that marks their best features. For example, the comedy mix tends to keep the boys apart instead of effectively combining them.

Nonetheless, the movie has its moments and some good gag lines, along with lively humorous support— MacBride as the dyspeptic hotel manager, Wood as the string bean agent, and Albertson as the boyish playwrite. Unfortunately, Lucille Ball's expert comedic talent goes untapped, but thankfully not her good looks.

Looks like the boys miss their home at MGM where their best movies were made. But even second-rate Marx Bros. at RKO still manages some good laughs.

I consider this the last Marx Brothers film worth seeing, though it is inferior to all their previous films. While you'll get a few laughs in their efforts following ROOM SERVICE, they are definitely a step below their earlier efforts.

The film was an adaptation of a stage production and it's obvious because most all the action takes place in one hotel room. As a result, there's a definite feeling of claustrophobia in the picture and it also prevents the film from rising to a higher level of entertainment.

About the only real WONDERFUL moment in the film is the very end, where one of the characters appears to come back to life--it's well worth seeing.

Though not one of the Marx Brothers' better known films, "Room Service" is well worth seeing nonetheless. Originally a stage play, it has the distinction of being the only Marx Brothers' film that wasn't originally written by or for the Brothers. However, the film adaptation is seamlessly tailored for the Marxes' stock characters: Groucho, the glib con-man; Chico, the deceptively simple Italian caricature; and Harpo, their anarchic collaborator. The film is very well written, with lots of hilarious gags and pratfalls. Especially memorable is the scene in which the brothers put on multiple layers of clothes as they prepare to decamp their hotel room without paying the bill. Even funnier is the scene in which the brothers, not having eaten for days, frenetically polish off a meal they had arranged to be diverted to their room. Watch Harpo as he madly harpoons peas with his fork and devours them one by one, like a ravenous automaton! In an earlier scene, the boys chase a flying turkey around the hotel room, hoping to make a meal of it. Alas, it flies out the window, whereupon Groucho says, "Never mind, we didn't have any cranberry sauce anyway!"

Unfortunately, the film lacks the usual piano and harp numbers by Chico and Harpo. Regrettable too is the absence of Margaret Dumont, Groucho's legendary "straight woman." Even so, the film is great fun--pure escapism!

The Marx Brothers did a film in the late 1930s that brought them back to their roots. Its one of the few films from the late period of the Marx Brothers that I really enjoyed. The reason I love this film compared to others is it isn't a showcase for one person to show off their singing. Groucho Marx is witty as usual in the role of Gordon Miller. Another reason I love this movie is that it returns to the type of gags the Marx Brothers were good at during the Paramount years. Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy plays a straight character in this film. Room Service(1938) is an under rated comedy that isn't as popular as some other movies by the Marx Brothers. Harper Marx does some funny things as Faker Englund. The Swing Low, Sweet Chariot number in the end is my favorite moment of Room Service(1938).