Zeppo Marx as Horatio Jamison in the 1930 Marx Brothers Film Animal Crackers. As usual, Zeppo plays straight man to his brother Groucho.
Posted on 09/12/2008 7:31:45 AM PDT by Diocletian
Zeppo Marx as Horatio Jamison in the 1930 Marx Brothers Film Animal Crackers. As usual, Zeppo plays straight man to his brother Groucho.
Growing up in the pre-cable TV era, our choices of programming were quite limited and local television stations had to rely on old movies and reruns due to the high cost of producing original broadcasting. Even though our selection was limited it was a blessing in disguise. Other than TCM buffs (like myself) and the annual Christmas showings of It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol (the one starring Alistair Sim is the best, by the way), how often are the kids of today seeing the old black and white classics?
Some of my fondest memories growing up were thanks to these old Hollywood productions. I grew up watching Our Gang/Little Rascals on Saturday mornings which would play after the new cartoons of the time. On weekend evenings, my father and I would laugh hysterically at Laurel and Hardy and especially The Three Stooges. These shows would be repeated endlessly, and you’d learn them word for word, and slap by poke. They would take you back to a time that seemed so much simpler, so much more trusting and maybe naive. Whether it was real or not was beside the point.
Early Sunday afternoons, one of the stations broadcasting from Buffalo would play movies starring The Marx Brothers. At that age, Harpo Marx was by far the funniest because of his physical comedy. Whether mugging for the camera or revealing the inventory of his cloak, it was an easy segue from the physical comedy of Laurel and Hardy/The Three Stooges to Harpo. Yet I wasn’t completely sold on the Marx Brothers since so much of their humour went over my head. Nevertheless, I knew what I was watching was special and that there would be a time when I’d be better able to understand it and appreciate it.
I rediscovered the Marx Brothers during my university days and before you can say “Why a Duck?” I became a devoted fan. I recall watching A Night at the Opera and laughing throughout the entire film. The mix of anarchy with Harpo’s physical comedy plus the wordplay between Groucho and Chico along with the incredible singing and music of Il Trovatore won me over with ease. Shortly thereafter, I watched Animal Crackers (which I consider their best film) and was once again blown away by the multi-layered entertainment that was packaged so tight and neatly. Shortly thereafter, I bought every movie of theirs that was for sale and since then have watched them over and over again.
My favourite Marx brother for a long time was their lead, Groucho for obvious reasons. Since then, it has shifted to Chico due to his punning, scheming, and attempts at carousing. Chico would play the bridge between Harpo and Groucho.
The Marx Brothers sing a tune in Duck Soup
But what about Zeppo? He seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield of The Marx Brothers since he gets “no respect”. Only appearing in the Brothers’ first four films, Zeppo was relegated to playing the straight man as opposed to the anarchic humour of the other three brothers. Was this because he was untalented? According to the brothers themselves, as well as family members and friends, Zeppo was not only the funniest of the brothers, but was also able to seamlessly ape each of the brothers’ characters (and sometimes stand in for them). Some suggest that Zeppo wasn’t allowed to display his humourous side since he’d either overshadow the other three, or more likely because he would make Groucho’s act redundant. Being the kid brother (a whole 11 years younger than Groucho and 13 and 14 years younger than Harpo and Chico, respectively) Zeppo had to give way as the older three had already well established characters that were easily to translate to the screen.
click here to read the rest of the article plus excerpts from Zeppo's last interview
Excellent article on my favorite comedy team (besides the Three Stooges of course.) You know you’ve grown old when your points of reference and your icons mean nothing to today’s generation.
I teach college part-time and in one of my classes, not one single student has ever seen an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, or have even HEARD of the band The Replacements. I was shocked.
This is true. I'm old enough to remember what it was like before cable tv, before DVDs, before VCR's were common (I'm talking about the 1970s). I grew up watching syndicated reruns of classic tv shows and classic old hollywood movies (some not so classic, but still entertaining). I recall watching not only the Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, but also Jerry Lewis, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, etc. The list is endless.
I recall when cable tv finally came to my area. It started out as only a couple of channels, and grew with more channels over time. This caused them to grab with both hands all of the classic tv shows and movies, taking them away from the local stations. I couldnt afford cable tv at the time and so I had to do without for many years. The local tv stations became barren as a desert. Replacing their old wonderful programming with infomercials, local or syndicated talk shows, syndicated episodes of more recent tv shows, movies that were recent and junk, etc. Sometimes I'd open the tv guide to compare the cable channels to the local tv stations to see what I was missing. What was airing on cable tv would make my mouth water. On a weekend afternoon I'd be watching some boring animal documentary on PBS, meantime TBS would be airing an Andy Griffth show marathon, AMC would be airing a Bob Hope or Jerry Lewis marathon, and so on.
When I at long last got cable tv (in 1996), I finally got to see all those wonderful movies and tv shows all over again. But now I'm witnessing the cable channels (AMC, Nick at Vite, TV Land, etc) go downhill as they replace their classic movies and tv shows with garbage that cannnot hold a candle in comparison.
“Isn’t Zeppo hysterical? The way he just stands there without expression or reaction. Boy! That cracks me up!” - Lilith Sternin Crane, Cheers
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
It’s practically impossible to get anyone under the age of 25 to watch anything on black and white film. Luckily for my now 21 year old son, I forced him to watch I Love Lucy and 77 Sunset Strip on Nick at Nick when he was young. Of course, I weaned him on the Stooges. So at least he has some appreciation for the classics. However, he won’t go near a black and white feature length movie pre 1960.
I’d like to make two suggestions for your son:
Sunset Boulevard
The Big Sleep
Film Noir translates pretty well these days once you get past the dated dialogue.
Typo: Nick at Nite
"I can see you bending over a hot stove, but I can't see the stove."
My gosh, doesn't your computer have a spell check? :-)
Nice work.
Ljubivoje
Correct British English spelling, Ljubo. A few of those tells that shows a European education.
Ah, but the Twilight Zone, and the Outer Limits probably wouldn't have required any "forcing". I absolutely loved those shows when I was a kid.
The Twilight Zone probably taught me the Golden Rule even better than even church did.
Alas, The Munsters and The Addams Family were as close to The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits as he wanted to get.
Oops...I apologise for not using my sarc tag. :-)
Wasn’t there a brother named Gummo?
Gummo was the only Marx brother to serve during WW1 as the three older brothers avoided the draft by relocating to a farm in Illinois to take advantage of some farm law so that they wouldn't have to serve.
Gummo wasn't much for performing and tried to get into the clothing business but failed, much like his father. He then turned to becoming an entertainment agent and teamed up with Zeppo when he left the team and together they became very, very successful in the business representing a lot of big name clients.
Gummo died only a few months before Groucho did, but Groucho wasn't informed of Gummo's death since they felt that the news would affect his already poor health.
And I apologize for forgetting who I was talking to! ;)
Unfortunately the interviewer never asked about Margaret Dumont. She was integral to the movies in my opinion since she represented the society that Groucho sought to join and that Harpo and Chico actively subverted. She was the Yin to their Yang. A professionally taught actress, she was also considered a great beauty in her youth and had a great singing voice. Groucho implied a few times that she just didn’t get the humour, but others suggest that her classical training never allowed her to crack a smile until she once burst out laughing during Groucho’s TV Game Show “You Bet Your Life”.
Interesting stuff, thanks.
I always loved Margaret Dumont but I have a confession to make that I didn't always get the humor either. In A Night at the Opera Groucho says to Dumont (Mrs. Claypool):
"I can see you now, in the kitchen, bending over a hot stove. But I can't see the stove!"
Of course that went over my head when I first saw this film as a child. But later for many years I wondered if it was a reference to a sexual position. Only fairly recently did it dawn on me that perhaps he was just joking about her size or the size of her posterior. Maybe it's supposed to be ambiguous. Maybe I still don't get it and I'm even denser than Margaret Dumont.
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