The Cocoanuts **** (1929, Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Oscar Shaw, Mary Eaton, Kay Francis) – Classic Movie Review 3062

The Marx Brothers’ first sound film was made when they were four Marxes, with Groucho, Chico and Harpo joined along with Zeppo. An all-talking, all-singing musical comedy hit, it is filmed at the dawn of the talkies so the sound quality is poor and the camera movements are restricted. But they are lucky enough to have a screenplay by George S Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind and songs by Irving Berlin, the best in the business.

[Incidentally, Berlin wrote his evergreen classic Always for this score but the show’s author Kaufman said he disliked the opening line ‘I’ll be loving you, Always’ and Berlin withdrew the song and gave it to his wife as a present. The substitute song A Little Bungalow was not a hit.]

The film derives from a 1925 Broadway musical comedy hit set in a Florida hotel, and this musical format holds the Marxes back a little. But their routines, especially the ‘Why a duck?’ sequence, are hilarious, and their eternal stooge, the droll foil Margaret Dumont – the long-suffering butt of so many of Groucho’s best witticisms – is here too as rich Mrs Potter. Groucho is a comedic triumph as Hammer, the grouchy manager of the bankrupt hotel, who will do anything to make money, even plot to make love to Mrs Potter and sell real estate, though thwarted by Chico and Harpo.

Oscar Shaw and Mary Eaton take care of the romance as architect Bob Adams and Polly Potter. The Gamby-Hale Ballet Girls and Allan K Foster Girls take care of the dancing. Playing Penelope, Kay Francis makes her screen debut, billed as Katherine Francis. Also in the cast are Basil Ruysdael, Cyril Ring, Sylvan Lee, Barton MacLane and Alan K Foster.

It was shot in 28 days at Paramount’s Long Island Studio in the early hours of the morning to reduce outside traffic noise as sound films were still so new that there was no sound-proofing. Paper used as props was soaking wet to prevent overloading the early sound equipment with paper-crinkling noise. Nevertheless, the overhead shot in used for the first time in an American sound movie in this movie. In the evenings, the Marxes were starring in Animal Crackers on the Broadway stage, and that provided the basis of their next movie.

Though this is normally said to be their debut, the Marx Brothers supposedly appeared in a 1921 silent short called Humor Risk, which doesn’t survive and apparently had only one public screening. Groucho later claimed that it was not very good.

The Cocoanuts opened at the Lyric Theater in New York City on December 8,1925 and ran for 276 performances with the four Marx Brothers, Margaret Dumont and Billy De Wolfe.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3062

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