Por Conta do Bonifácio

30 years ago today, Groucho Marx died at 86, three days after Elvis Presley. For the occasion, I'd thought I'd view some of his movies of which Room Service is one of them. Unlike the others he made with his brothers, this one wasn't especially tailored to their talents since it was originally a Broadway play starring other people. So the action is mostly confined to the hotel and the pace slows down a little bit. Nevertheless, there's still some witty lines and visual humor concerning Harpo that makes this one of the more enjoyable latter day-Marx Brothers films. And there's a wonderful supporting cast with Frank Albertson as the playwright and, especially, Donald MacBride as the hotel manager who keeps exclaiming, "Jumping Butterballs!" Also of note is the fact that a couple of young players named Ann Miller and Lucille Ball appear here long before their established personas. So while not the classic of their five Paramount and first two MGM pictures, this RKO production was nothing the Marx Brothers should be ashamed of.

The Marx Brothers and Frank Albertson must avoid being thrown out of their hotel suite. They have no money to pay their bill, so they invent a series of ailments for Mr. Albertson to act out in order to distract hotel management. The four hope an upcoming production of a play will reverse their fortunes.

"Room Service" finds the Brothers slightly of the mark. Groucho and Chico appear uninterested, especially when watching the other performers. Harpo is more lively, but is still not quite Harpo; his "Say Ahhhh…" goes on too long. Oddly, enough, the fourth member of their team, Mr. Albertson, turns in the more consistent performance. Donald MacBride is also very good. Lucille Ball acts like the Marx Brothers - standing around until her next line. Ann Miller is more interested, as Albertson's squeeze. A flying turkey steals the show!

****** Room Service (9/21/38) William A. Seiter ~ Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Frank Albertson

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.

Many criticize "Room Service" as the worst Marx Brothers film. This is both misleading and ridiculous. While "Duck Soup" now receives the most critical acclaim, one need only compare that film to Room Serivce to see a dramatic improvement in the directing and delivery. Room Service wasn't written explicitly for the Marx Brothers, so it doesn't have catchy lines. Still, the film flows much better than predecessors and is still pretty damn funny. The Marx Brothers made many great movies, and yes, this is one of those great ones!

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.