• Wood also directed probably the 2nd best Marx Brothers movie, with a similar name, A Night at the Opera (1935)
  • 111 minutes which is long for a Marx Brothers movie- there’s a long musical interim that serves almost like an old fashioned intermission
  • Solid Waxman Score
  • Dumont is great as she always is as the butt of the jokes—and we have Maureen O’Sullivan (Mia Farrow mother which I’m sure interested Woody) here as Allan Jones (Zeppo stand in—Zeppo’s last was duck soup in 1933 and was tired of playing the straight man) romantic interest
  • The scene with Chico selling Groucho racing/gambling code books is one of their greatest
  • Groucho’s “don’t drink that poison, that’s four dollars an ounce”
  • Great set piece and scene of the brothers doing a medical examination of Dumont
  • “Tomorrow is another day” song and depression escapism—parts of it are almost like a Busby Berkeley number
  • It’s not overly hilarious but the big set piece with 50+ cards holding up the horse track as a visual gag is impressive filmmaking
  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 1937