Duck Soup

Overview

In this film, the mythical country of Freedonia is broke and on the verge of revolution. Mrs. Teasdale, Freedonia's principal benefactress, will lend the country $20 million if the president withdraws and places the government in the hands of the "fearless, progressive" Rufus T. Firefly.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/07/2011
UPC:	0025192084614
Original Release:	1933
Rating:	NR
Source:	UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:09:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Groucho Marx	Rufus T. Firefly,Chicolini,Pinky,Bob Roland
Margaret Dumont	Mrs. Gloria Teasdale
Louis Calhern	Ambassador Trentino of Sylvania
Raquel Torres	Vera Marcal
Verna Hillie	Secretary
Leonid Kinskey	Agitator
Edmund Breese	Zander
William Worthington	First Minister of Finance
Edwin Maxwell	Secretary of War
Edgar Kennedy	Street Vendor
Marx Brothers	Actor
George MacQuarrie	First Judge
Fred Sullivan	Second Judge,Second Judge
Davison Clark	Second Minister of Finance
Charles B. Middleton	Prosecutor
E.H. Calvert	Actor
Eric Mayne	Third Judge
Dale Van Sickel	Palace Guard

Technical Credits

Herman Mankiewicz	Producer
Leo McCarey	Director

Editorial Reviews

Along with A Night at the Opera, Duck Soup is often regarded as the definitive Marx Brothers movie, the picture in which every shot, every line, and every gag worked. Modern audiences are often surprised to learn that it was a notorious flop that killed the Brothers' contract at Paramount Pictures in the mid-1930s. Audiences harried by the Great Depression seemed unable to connect with the Marx Brothers in their Paramount movies, at least not in the way that Broadway theatergoers and Paramount executives who'd seen them in The Cocoanuts or Animal Crackers did. Part of the problem may have been their piercing topicality and ethnic humor, whether Groucho's Jewish conniver or Chico's fake Italian. And no movie was more piercing in its topicality in 1933 than Duck Soup, a satire of nationalism, diplomacy, and international intrigue that seemed all too real as Hitler's rise to power in Germany dominated world news. When the Marxes then moved to MGM, the company's chief of production, Irving Thalberg, convinced them to tone down their image and give themselves sympathetic personae, and audiences then devoured their work. But Duck Soup, a failure in its time, remains the brothers' definitive film in their classic original style.