Duck Soup review

 Number 261 on the top 1000 films of all time is Leo McCarey's pre-code musical black comedy starring the Marx Brothers - Duck Soup.

Rufus T Firefly (Groucho Marx) has just been elected president of the country of Freedonia. However, his bumbling antics soon bring his country into conflict with the neighbouring Sylvania. It isn't helped by how its ambassador Trentino has sent his own spies Pinky (Harpo Marx) and Chicolini (Chico Marx) into Freedonia.

A common rebuttal of any criticism of older films revolves around how it was a different time and they haven't aged well. Yet Charlie Chaplin, arguably the Marx Brothers' biggest contemporary, released a number of comedies that hold up to this day. They are funny, unlike Duck Soup.

I barely laughed. If I'm being generous, I may have chuckled once or twice, but only because of how badly the film was trying and failing to be funny. Running jokes are all well and good along as they aren't done to death. Duck Soup hammered all its jokes into the ground. It was funny seeing the grand fanfare for President Firefly only to not have him appear - or it would have been if we had this joke once. Not three or four times. It became old very quickly.

And rather than a comedy film, it seemed like an eternal set-up for jokes that weren't funny and really predictable. Sure, comedies like Airplane are choc-a-block with cheesy jokes, but at least those were funny. There wasn't anything funny about Pinky squirting water at people only to have it squirted down his trousers or how he kept winding up the popcorn seller by taking his hat. Pinky's constant tooting of his horn was irritating too.

Also, what was with the weird songs? I know this was a musical, but the songs didn't seem to fit at all. They added nothing to the film except emphasising its cheesiness.

This film was only sixty-eight minutes long, but it felt so much longer due to its unnecessary musical numbers and running jokes. Was it just a different time? I'm not so sure. I think this film would have been just as unfunny in the 1930's as it is now.