Copacabana

If you love Groucho Marx or love musicals this is the movie for you. Groucho Marx is still the funniest man alive. Groucho Marx is witty as a slippery agent to Carmen Miranda in this movie. I am a fan of anything he does or anything the "Marx Bros." are invovled with. (even though this is a solo act)This movie has it all musical numbers and laughs. The chemistry between Carmen Miranda(Carmen Novarro)and Groucho (Lionel Q.Deveraux) is incredible. I will go into the plot well it has to do with anarchy and misinformation with has been a playing ground of Groucho's for years. I would like to thank Groucho and his brothers for making me laugh when my our life I sometimes don't have much to laugh at. Fellas you were trully are blessed. Thank You. P.S. Mr. Deveraux even brings back an old friend for a song and dance... don't ask you can't afford him.

While I prefer Groucho's humor the most amongst all three Marx brothers, it's just not the same without Chico and Harpo for Groucho to play off of.

I had never seen Carmen Miranda in action, though I had long known of her being a performer with kooky hats. Now that I've seen her on screen, I think she comes across as a cross between Marlene Dietrich and Charo - a surprisingly fun mix. She's actually a good foil for Groucho, so I think it's the screenplay that doesn't play to their full potentials. It's still a fairly charming movie, with Carmen taking on the role of two different stage performers and Groucho providing zingers.

The talent act of Deveraux (Groucho) and Novarro (Carmen Miranda) fizzles. So, Deveraux takes on the role of Novarro's "agent" in a bid to coax the Copa manager, played by Steve Cochran, to hire Novarro as a hot Brazilian number. But Cochran is interested only in credible agents, those with multiple clients. Naturally Groucho invents Mlle. Fifi as a second client. The thing is ... Groucho only has Novarro. So, who else to play the role of Mlle. Fifi than ... Novarro. The main plot line thus centers on Groucho and Carmen in their efforts to fool the club manager, by covertly alternating Carmen's on-stage roles.

It's a dumb, silly story. But Groucho delivers enough funny one-liners and clever quips to make his part interesting. And lively, breezy Carmen Miranda, with that unique style of dancing and singing, entertains with style and panache. The silly storyline alternates with staged floor shows, which overflow with music and Latin atmosphere. The costumes are interesting, but the B&W cinematography does not do them justice.

The film quickly becomes dull, especially in the middle Act, when Groucho and Carmen go off-screen. Too much time is wasted on a romantic subplot between Cochran's character and his secretary Anne, played without feeling by Gloria Jean. We also have to endure, and I do mean endure, the "talent" of someone named Andy Russell. That smarmy smile of his makes me want to jump off the nearest cliff.

This film will probably disappoint most Groucho fans, as he is but one of several that get major screen time. Steve Cochran, Gloria Jean, Andy Russell, and a few others just are not in Groucho's league. Carmen Miranda is, and whenever she is singing or dancing, the film is entertaining.

If you can ignore all the extraneous characters and focus on Groucho and Carmen, "Copacabana" can be worth a one-time visit.

This is worthwhile motion picture entertainment. It shows off the considerable talents of Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda, not to mention their highly unusual chemistry, and leads the casual classic movie viewer to an enjoyable experience.

The budget of this independent United Artists release could have been larger, because a few of the sets do appear a bit chintzy, as if they have been constructed quickly and cheaply. But the lavish musical numbers are more than acceptable and convey great style and extravagance, more than countering the picture's other visual shortcomings.

Particularly impressive is a charming dream scene that Gloria Jean performs with Steve Cochran (a much-underrated actor). And how can one not become an immediate fan of singer Andy Russell whose vocal talents are amply on display during the proceedings?

"Copacabana" could've been GREAT fun. Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda together: weren't they just born for each other? Unfortunately Hollywood has a recurring tendency of wasting unconventional talent, and "Copacabana" (and Groucho's film career, and Carmen's film career) is a sad evidence thereof. John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable or Bob Hope had no problem strutting their old stuff over and over again; but in 1946 Hollywood decreed that the public was tired of Carmen's "exoticism" and Groucho's routines and came up with this B-budget turkey.

The film departs on embarrassingly deprecating premises: that Groucho should play a passé comedian who is no longer funny (!); that Carmen should play a singer who isn't electrifying enough (!), so that she has to assume a new persona as romantic French (!) chanteuse Mlle. Fifi and sing incognito (!). Now, come on: even wearing a mushroom blonde wig and a veil that hides most of her face, who except the very blind wouldn't recognize Carmen Miranda's hyperactive, pure-joy rolling eyes and those boomerang eyebrows?

The film is a dead duck that only comes to life when Groucho is allowed to deliver his peculiar one-liners and, especially, when Carmen sings and dances her "exotic" numbers (her "romantic" ones are totally unsuited to her talents). There's no point trying to resist the irrepressible, unique, sensuous Carmen, with her infectious smile, the arms and hands flashing like lightning, the athletic legs on the 7-inch platform shoes, and the gravity-defying, eye-popping costumes. She sparks with such high voltage she's like shock therapy: we smile just at the sight of how much fun she's having. There has never been anybody like her, a true one-of-a-kind.

But there are four essential things missing in "Copacabana": a) a decent script; b) a bigger budget; c) a minimally creative director and d) Technicolor. "Copacabana" CRIES for color -- it was planned to be shot in color, but the Technicolor preparation process (this was a Beacon Productions movie, not MGM) took so long the producers decided to do it in b&w, as the film HAD to be released simultaneously with the opening of the L.A.'s franchise of "The Copacabana", then NYC's #1 night-club, whose owner was one of the financiers of the film. (By the way, Carmen was the #1 headliner of NYC's Copacabana in the 1940s, she had even a lounge named after her, the "Miranda's Room").

There's a lot of expendable stuff in "Copacabana": pretty much the rest of the cast, especially toothy mellow- voiced dork-looking Andy Russell, and the super- cheesy Steve Cochran/Gloria Jean subplot. The songs are uniformly awful, with the soporific "Je Vous Aime" and "Stranger Things Have Happened" sung T-W-I-C-E each, with great exceptions being Carmen's tongue-twisting tour-de-force of Brazilian hit "Tico-Tico no Fubá" (a major hit in Brazil since 1917 and internationally famous since Ethel Smith's version in Disney's "The Three Caballeros" in 1943; later performed by Denise Dummont in Woody Allen's "Radio Days") and Groucho's performance - - or rather his "anti-performance" - of "Go West".

"Copacabana" is that kind of disappointment that drives you mad with rage for what it could have been, but fans of Carmen and Groucho have got to see it anyway. Shame on Hollywood for wasting such talented, one-of-a-kind performers with third-rate material and filmmakers.