(Review originally written at 15 April 2008)
The movie features all kinds of different comedy. Slapstick, comical dialog, subtle humor, exaggerated staged humor, funny musical numbers tons of sexual innuendo. It's a broad mixture of high class comedy elements that were common and know back in the '30's. It basically makes this movie fun to watch for everyone, no matter what your referenced type of humor is. This movie has it all and knows to combine it into one big successful comical style for this movie.
The movie features the four Marx brother's but this truly still is mostly a Groucho Marx. He really plays the lead role of the movie, which perhaps sort of goes at the expense of the talent of his brothers but he perhaps also was the best of the bunch, so it's not as if the movie suffers from his central presence. Also the rest of the supporting actors are good and are definitely comfortable with the genre. The movie for instance also features Edgar Kennedy, who is best know for his roles in the Laurel & Hardy movies, often as a cop.
What also mostly surprised me about the movie was its look. Back in the '30's most money was not spend on comedies and they were often simple and cheap made movies. But this movie has the same good and expensive look as an '30's swashbuckler, so to speak. It has good big looking sets and some nice costume design.
Well, of course the movie its story is rather simple and predictable. It also isn't truly original and so aren't the situations and characters really. It all had been done before in past comedies, for instance by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and this is the only reason why I just can't really give this movie a perfect 10 out of 10 rating. However the execution of it all still makes this an highly original and effective genre movie to watch.
9/10
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