Category: Film and TV

I really like the Marx Brothers brand of zany humor.

Recently I re-watched their movie Duck Soup and it reminded me of just how funny the brothers can be.

Duck Soup is my favorite of all the Marx Brothers films–at least of all the ones I’ve seen thus far (there are still some I have yet to watch). It’s also widely considered the best of their films by film critics.

One note for readers who aren’t native English-speakers: The title of the movie is not to be taken literally. Americans almost never eat duck soup. Instead, the phrase "duck soup" is a metaphor that refers to something that is very easy. If you say, "That’s just duck soup," you mean "That’s very easy" (not that many folks use this phrase much any more; presumably it dates to an era when more Americans went duck hunting).

The film was made in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression. It shows the Marx Brothers at the peak of their form. (In fact, this was the last Marx Brothers film to feature Zeppo–the Marx Brother who served as "romantic interest" in their early films. After this, Zeppo stayed behind the scenes and let Groucho, Chico, and Harpo completely take over the spotlight.)

Among other classic bits, Duck Soup contains the famous "mirror gag."

In this scene, Groucho is confronted with Harpo (and later Chico) dressed exactly as he is.

They mimmic his behavior to an impossibly exact degree, creating the illusion that he is looking into a mirror when he is really looking at someone mimmicing him.

This was not the first or the last time the mirror gag would be used. It was previously used in a couple of silent films and was later used by Lucille Ball (with Harpo Marx) and on The X-Files.

In addition to physical comedy involving Harpo, there’s also a lot of wordplay involving Groucho and Chico. Recently here on the blog we were talking about the nature of comedy and the subject of wordplay came up as a form of (frequently) unhurtful humor that doesn’t presuppose that anyone is unfortunate. It can just be a game where we see how cleverly words can be bounced off each other.

The Marx Brothers were great at that. (Though some of their wordplay does contain barbs–particularly toward their regular leading lady Margaret Dumont–as well as occasional politically incorrect remarks since these films were made in the 1930s.)

I don’t remember when but I apparently saw this films as a boy.

How do I know that if I don’t remember it?

Because the film messed me up with respect to American history. We Americanistas all know of "the midnight ride of Paul Revere"–a famous event in our history in which the silversmith Paul Revere made a . . . uh . . . midnight ride and warned the countryside that British troops were coming in from Boston.

This occurred in 1775, the year before we threw off the shackles of Our British Oppressors (now Our British Best Buddies).

According to the story, Paul Revere was supposed to watch the tower of the Old North Church, where he would see one lantern if the British troops were coming by land and two lanterns if they were coming by sea. In HISTORY, he saw two lanters and rode off telling people that the British Redcoats were coming by sea, but in Duck Soup‘s re-enactment of the scene there’s a joke where Groucho sees three lanterns, and he declares that "They’re coming by land and sea!"

I saw that as a boy and that one image sank into my brain. The image of those three lanterns being lit stuck with me, and I thought I’d seen it in one of those stiff, formal "you are there" history reenactment films they’d show us in school.

I was in my twenties or thirties before I realized that this was A JOKE and not what really happened.

The film makes fun of all kinds of history–including the contemporary European history of when it was made. It features the fortunes of an imaginary European country named Fredonia, which is locked in conflict with the neighboring country, Sylvania. It deals with the problems of taxes and economics and national pride and self-defense that plagued the nations of Europe between the two World Wars.

Evil dictator Benito Mussolini thought it so closely reflected the events of the day in Italy that he BANNED the film, much to the delight of the Marx Brothers.

The movie is a regular history-slaw, which must have used just about every historical costume that Paramount Pictures had in their wardrobe department.

Despite the fact that Duck Soup is commonly regarded as the greatest of the Marx Brothers films (by me and others), it was for many years unavailable on DVD.

It was apparently released on DVD early on, but went out of print and was only available at insanely expensive prices (like $300 a disk!).

But it has recently been re-released and is now available again at HUMAN prices!

GET THE FILM ALONE.

GET IT AS PART OF A 5-DISK MARX BROTHERS SET FROM PARAMOUNT.

I’m very jealous that the publicists for the upcoming movie Serenity (based on the cult sci-fi show Firefly) have invited the guys over at Powerline to have a screening of the movie for themselves and 120 or so of their readers.

I mean, John Hinderaker, who does their review, spends half of the piece talking about the fact that he isn’t a sci-fi fan, doesn’t watch TV, and hasn’t seen a sci-fi movie since Star Wars (the ORIGINAL one).

What pearls before swine! I mean, that’s just fahng-tzong fung-kwong duh jeh.

On the other hand, I’m very pleased to note what this represents. As Hinderaker explains:

These folks have figured out that the major bloggers have audiences that exceed those of most newspaper and magazine movie reviewers, and that we can help generate word of mouth traffic and, better yet, controversy [SOURCE].

Yet another indication of life in the fourth age of human communications.

And I’m not really bitter about not getting a Serenity screening.

After all, they can’t take the sky from me.

PRE-UPDATE: STEVEN D. GREYDANUS’S REVIEW OF SERENITY IS AVAILABLE ONLINE. (And it’s insightful.)

And by "a good idea" I mean "my idea."

You may have noticed that the time between the theatrical release of a motion picture and its DVD release is getting shorter. MUCH shorter.

My idea: Eliminate the time discrepancy COMPLETELY. Release movies on DVD at the same time they are in the theater.

In fact, SELL THEM IN THE THEATER. There’s no better time to hit a person up to by a DVD of a movie than when they’ve just seen it and are all excited about it. Make them wait 3-6 months and their enthusiasm will cool and you’ll have less of a chance of selling them that DVD.

I know I’ve come out of a movie and really wanted a DVD of it only to find myself thinking, months later when it finally comes out, "Was it really that good? Do really want to spend the money for a DVD?" My memories of the movie have faded enough that I end up not buying one, even though I now have the chance.

Selling DVDs in the theater would also (a) help boost flagging theater revenues (good for the theaters) and (b) cut down on film piracy if people can buy a legitimate copy the same way selling songs through iTunes cuts down on illegal downloading (good for the studios) and (c) please the customer (good for the customer)!

I know, I know.

People will argue that letting people buy the DVDs will cut down on ticket sales. Maybe so. Maybe not. You can cut down on that some if you only sell the DVDs in the theater while the movie is showing, so you have to go there to buy them.

At any rate, it gives customers more choice, and in principle, that’s a good thing. (Me being a customer.)

I think it’s an idea that’s at least worth experimenting with.

AND NOW, FINALLY, SOMEONE IS.

That’s one way of trying to transcribe the most famous scream in motion picture history:

THE WILHELM SCREAM!

It’s named after a character named Pvt. Wilhelm in the western The Charge At Feather River (1953), who is just filling his pipe when he is shot in the leg by an arrow, prompting him to utter the now-famous scream.

The scream went on to be used in countless Warner Brothers movies and, after it was discovered by Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt, in countless additional movies as well.

Burtt ran down the source of the scream and found that it was originally used in the 1951 film Distant Drums, where an unnamed character is eaten by an alligator.

After the photography on the film was done a series of voice takes was done under the title "Man being eaten by an alligator," and these became (collectively) known as the Wilhelm Scream.

Who the voice actor was doing the Wilhelm Scream is not known for certain, but Burtt has uncovered evidence that it was Sheb Wooley. best known for recording the song "Purple People Eater."

The scream has been used in innumerable movies, including all of the Star Wars films, all of the Indiana Jones films, and the second and third Lord of the Rings films.

It’s even used in TV shows and video games.

No doubt, you’ve heard it dozens of times, and now you know its name!

LISTEN TO THE WILHELM SCREAM (.wav).

(PARTIAL) LIST OF MOVIES WITH THE WILHELM SCREAM.

NPR RADIO FEATURE ABOUT THE WILHELM SCREAM (.real).

WATCH A MONTAGE OF CLIPS WITH THE WILHELM SCREAM (.mov; 48 mb!).

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WILHELM SCREAM.

BUY MOVIES WITH THE WILHELM SCREAM.

BUY WILHELM SCREAM MEMORABILIA.

How many films have you seen with the Wilhelm Scream?

(Maybe I’ll take the .wav file and use it for one of my Windows sound events. Every time my computer crashes, it could make the Wilhelm Scream.)

The Gray Lady, in an editorial inexplicably placed in the New York Times‘ Science section, is bemused over the success of the film documentary March of the Penguins, noting in wonder that political conservatives have taken a shine to the film’s affirmation of such traditional values as monogamy and pro-life commitment. After Michael Moore’s anti-America screed Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins has become the second highest-grossing documentary ever.

"[O]f all the reactions [March of the Penguins] has evoked, perhaps the most surprising is its appeal to conservatives. They are hardly its only audience; the film is the second highest grossing documentary of all time, behind Fahrenheit 9/11" [because, in the World According to the Gray Lady, there are not enough Red Staters to dance on the head of a pin, much less turn a film into a blockbuster].

"But conservative groups have turned its stirring depiction of the mating ordeals of emperor penguins into an unexpected battle anthem in the culture wars" [which liberals didn’t dream of doing with Fahreheit 9/11].

"March of the Penguins, the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is ‘the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.’

"Speaking of audiences who feel that movies ignore or belittle such themes, he added: ‘This is the first movie they’ve enjoyed since The Passion of the Christ. This is The "Passion of the Penguins".’ [Weirdly enough, there are sufficient numbers of Red State wackos to turn The Passion of the Christ into a record-breaking megahit — must have been since no one else would dream of contributing to that film’s success, right? — but the Red State wackos don’t have much to with the success of March of the Penguins because it has been too successful to depend on the money of Red State rubes, quoth the Gray Lady.]

"In part, the movie’s appeal to conservatives may lie in its soft-pedaling of topics like evolution and global warming. The filmmakers say they did not consciously avoid those topics — indeed, they say they are strong believers in evolutionary theory — but they add that they wanted to create a film that would reach as many people as possible." ["They wanted to create a film that would reach as many people as possible"? Wow, what a great idea for an industry that depends on audience appeal!]

GET THE STORY.

I haven’t yet seen March of the Penguins myself, but it sounds wonderful.  I’ll have to send the Gray Lady a thank-you note for piquing my interest in this film by appealing to my Inner Conservative.

By the time I was a kid watching Saturday-afternoon sitcom reruns, Gilligan’s Island was a staple of the syndication market. I loved the show’s inventiveness in constructing all of life’s necessities from a few coconut shells and banana peels, and, in retrospect, the show reminds me of a live-action Flintstones: The appeal was not in the plot but in the over-the-top island adaptations of modern gadgets and gizmos.

The anchor of the show was its earnest, wide-eyed innocent, Gilligan. The actor who played Gilligan, Bob Denver, has died. May he rest in peace.

"Bob Denver, whose portrayal of goofy first mate Gilligan on the 1960s television show Gilligan’s Island, made him an iconic figure to generations of TV viewers, has died, his agent confirmed Tuesday. He was 70.

"Denver died Friday at Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina of complications from treatment he was receiving for cancer, his agent, Mike Eisenstadt, told The Associated Press. Denver’s death was first reported by Entertainment Tonight.

[…]

"Denver’s signature role was Gilligan. But he was already known to TV audiences for another iconic character, that of Maynard G. Krebs, the bearded beatnik friend of Dwayne Hickman’s Dobie in the The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which aired from 1959 to 1963.

"Gilligan’s Island lasted on CBS from 1964 to 1967, and it was revived in later seasons with three high-rated TV movies. It was a Robinson Crusoe story about seven disparate travelers who are marooned on a deserted Pacific Island after their small boat was wrecked in a storm."

GET THE STORY.

UPDATE:

GET SEASON ONE OF GILLIGAN’S ISLAND ON DVD!

(Nod to the reader who corrected my ghastly error in omitting this information.)

In what may be the premiere case of trying to have cake and eat it, too, Hollywood wants to both film Dan Brown’s trashy anti-Christian novel The DaVinci Code and market it to Christians as a Christian-friendly film:

"Filming is not yet complete on Ron Howard’s adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, but the controversy is already raging. An association called the American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property has called on Roman Catholics to boycott the film, saying: ‘It attacks everything that Catholics hold sacred.’

"They have the backing of the Archbishop of Genoa, who described the book as ‘a sackful of lies against the church and against Christ himself.’ And even enlightened Catholics [unlike, presumably, the Archbishop of Genoa?] such as the commentator Barbara Nicolosi, who runs Act One, a seminar for Christian film-makers in Hollywood, says: ‘The book is particularly repulsive. It says Jesus isn’t Divine and that the Church is basically evil.’

"Normally, such outrage would be all good clean fun at the box-office, but the re-election of George W. Bush on a wave of devout heartland votes and the phenomenal success of The Passion of the Christ have changed Hollywood’s thinking. The Christian moviegoer is now a recognised and lucrative demographic that Hollywood cannot afford to ignore.

"Columbia Studios, which is making The Da Vinci Code, clearly feels that it cannot count on divine protection [and should count itself fortunate not to be the target of divine wrath]. It has called on the services of Grace Hill Media to help to prepare the groundwork for the film, which is to be released next summer, and defuse controversy."

GET THE STORY.

In a backhanded way, this whole plot substantiates the Christian assertion that Dan Brown’s novel is anti-Christian. There would be no need to spin the film as "Christian-friendly" were Hollywood unconcerned that the movie was offensive to Christian sensibilities.

In what may be the premiere case of trying to have cake and eat it, too, Hollywood wants to both film Dan Brown’s trashy anti-Christian novel The DaVinci Code and market it to Christians as a Christian-friendly film:

"Filming is not yet complete on Ron Howard’s adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, but the controversy is already raging. An association called the American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property has called on Roman Catholics to boycott the film, saying: ‘It attacks everything that Catholics hold sacred.’

"They have the backing of the Archbishop of Genoa, who described the book as ‘a sackful of lies against the church and against Christ himself.’ And even enlightened Catholics [unlike, presumably, the Archbishop of Genoa?] such as the commentator Barbara Nicolosi, who runs Act One, a seminar for Christian film-makers in Hollywood, says: ‘The book is particularly repulsive. It says Jesus isn’t Divine and that the Church is basically evil.’

"Normally, such outrage would be all good clean fun at the box-office, but the re-election of George W. Bush on a wave of devout heartland votes and the phenomenal success of The Passion of the Christ have changed Hollywood’s thinking. The Christian moviegoer is now a recognised and lucrative demographic that Hollywood cannot afford to ignore.

"Columbia Studios, which is making The Da Vinci Code, clearly feels that it cannot count on divine protection [and should count itself fortunate not to be the target of divine wrath]. It has called on the services of Grace Hill Media to help to prepare the groundwork for the film, which is to be released next summer, and defuse controversy."

GET THE STORY.

In a backhanded way, this whole plot substantiates the Christian assertion that Dan Brown’s novel is anti-Christian. There would be no need to spin the film as "Christian-friendly" were Hollywood unconcerned that the movie was offensive to Christian sensibilities.

Coming soon to a DVD player near you: Revenge of the Sith is to be released on DVD on November 1:

"The Force will return to retail stores Nov. 1 with a double whammy: Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith will be released on DVD, and Star Wars Battlefront II will be made available for all the top video game platforms.

Sith is the year’s top-grossing movie, with domestic box office earnings of $373.9 million (and an additional $425 million overseas). The two-disc set will include a full-length documentary; two new featurettes, one exploring the prophecy of Anakin Skywalker as the Chosen One and the other on the movie’s stunts; and a 15-part collection of ‘Web documentaries.’"

GET THE STORY.

Practice your Jedi mind tricks now so that you can convince the Star Wars fanatic in your life that he does not want the new DVD until Christmas Day. If that doesn’t work, take heart. There’s sure to be a jumbo-deluxe, extended-edition, collector’s set of all of the Star Wars movies Any Day Now.

Hollywood may have been unwilling to honor Mel Gibson for his blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, but it is definitely willing to cash in on the success of his movie by scavaging religious imagery to plump up otherwise thoroughly secular films:

"In the summer blockbuster movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, from 20th Century Fox, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play godless suburbanites and professional assassins. But when they steal their neighbor’s car for an extended chase scene, a crucifix hangs conspicuously from the rear-view mirror, and in the next scene the actors wear borrowed jackets that read ‘Jesus Rocks’ as they go on the lam.

"’We decided to make the next-door neighbor, whose crucifix it is, be hip, young, cool Christians,’ explained the movie’s director, Doug Liman. ‘It’s literally in there for no other reason than I thought: This is cool.’

"Liman isn’t alone. Mainstream Hollywood, after decades of ignoring the pious — or occasionally defying them with the likes of Martin Scorsese’s revisionist Last Temptation of Christ and Kevin Smith’s profane parody Dogma — is adjusting to what it perceives to be a rising religiosity in American culture."

GET THE STORY.

Uh huh. Sure.

What these Hollywood types don’t seem to understand is that Mel Gibson’s movie succeeded because it was sincere. It wasn’t aimed at milking the presumed "religiosity" of a target audience. (Had it been so crassly targeted it would have been far less overtly Catholic in its appeal to an overwhelmingly Evangelical Christian audience.) But draping a crucifix on a mirror and stuffing pop icons into "Jesus Rocks" jackets is so patently patronizing as to be immediately scorned by the audience whose bucks Hollywood wants.

Christians, in the eyes of Hollywood studios, are handy milch cows but are not worth taking seriously.