This week on Full Marx, Ian and David are joined by David’s daughter Mary to discuss one of her favourite movies, Monkey Business. The Marx Brothers third film and their first based, for the most part, on entirely original material.
A great setting, great gags and a weak ending. A weak ending? What could the Full Marx gang be thinking??? Well, you’ll just have to tune in to find out!
Here is the Theatrical Manager’s Office sketch from I’ll Say She Is as it appeared in The House That Shadows Built:
Here is a short film starring Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts:
And here is a snippet of the episode of the Twilight Zone directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring Buster Keaton:
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For the record, “Mankiewicz” is pronounced “MANK-a-witz.”
Thanks! You’ll be happy to know that I returned to that pronunciation for the Horse Feathers episode!
I am loving this podcast, David and Ian! The blend of history, along with your commentary on the movie scene by scene is really great. Fun having Mary on to give her take on this episode, too! I only have one of their movies in my possession: Animal Crackers on VHS. Just ordered in a new VCR so I can watch it again. Do you have good suggestions of how to get the rest of their films? Have you talked about that and I missed it??
My two kids always watched any of the old movies I could scrounge up. I remember once when we moved to NC, and my then 6th grade daughter had a friend over and put in a beloved 30’s comedy, said friend shouted: “Black and white! I can’t watch black and white!!!” and left the room. Daughter Meg was quite surprised! None of us have forgotten… and we think that little person’s education was lacking!
Anyway, thanks for this new podcast. It’s quite perfect! 🙂
I’m enjoying your podcasts, especially this one with Mary!
I wanted to note, in reference to your frequent lament that the stage version of I’ll Say She Is was lost to the ages, which you state a few times throughout these first three episodes (although perhaps you correct this in later episodes that I’d haven’t yet heard) that in fact it is not quite so lost!
Indeed, I’ll Say She Is was lovingly excavated and adapted by Noah Diamond, and then restaged (with Noah in the Groucho role) to incredible reviews (including from The NY Times, The New Yorker, and Time Out) and other acclaim, eventually Off Broadway by 2016. Read all about here: illsaysheis.com.
Thanks for listening, Seth.
I am aware of the re-staging of I’ll Say She Is, which looks like a lot of fun. I don’t know the whole history of the project. I didn’t know that Noah Diamond had to excavate the original script for the show, for instance.
My comments of regret are more regrets that we have no record of the Marxes on stage. I always assume that the revue nature of I’ll Say She Is would have not made it a great film. Anyways, a lot of the stage shows ended up in various ways in the movies.
I’m also aware of the new versions of the Flywheel, Shuster and Flywheel radio show. For me though, impersonations of the Marx Brothers are not the same as the Marx Brothers.
I took away a couple of things from this podcast. One is something I knew but never realized (if that makes sense) that came from your discussion of the titles of the Marx’s movies; the Paramount titles are all nonsensical, like the movies themselves, and the MGM titles make sense, just as MGM insisted on putting the Marxes in a context that made sense. The other is that, despite the insistence that plots don’t matter and we just want Marx Brothers comedy, it seems to be a natural instinct to WANT more plot! In this podcast there were numerous lamentations that there wasn’t more plot to explain WHY they were acting as they were, and regrets that there wasn’t more exposition to explain who they were and where they came from. That more plot would necessarily mean less comedy didn’t seem to occur to anyone, and this was coming from people who are fans of Marxian comedy. I feel as if I finally understand how MGM could submerge their comedy in (for them) well-developed plots, without even realizing it. I’m looking forward to seeing how this develops in the other podcasts.