Mail this application with a check to: Alex Film Society P.O. Box 4807, Glendale, CA 91222-0807 (cont’d from page 1) AlexFilm SOCIETY Name(s) please print __________________________________________ presents Org/Business ______________________________________________ On The Road With The Brothers Marx Address __________________________________________________ Harpo’s pantomime was sheer exposition, but it always City ________________ State _____________ Zip+4 ____________ got a laugh, even when it was expanded, and more gags were stuck in it, and guesses on Chico’s part as to what Home Phone ___________________Cell _______________________ he might mean by his signals were put in and taken out E-mail ___________________________________________________ and written and rewritten like wildfire, until it was finally THEATRE On The Road With extended, elaborated, stretched out, and amplified into a q I (WE) CAN VOLUNTEER. Please call. whole routine, and turned into one of the great Harpo- The Brothers Marx By Joe Adamson q Enclosed is my (our) donation of $________ Chico scenes of ever. q Sustaining Member - $500 q Dual/Family - $50 By the time they left Chicago, the laugh gauge was (Veterans of vaudeville, the Marx Brothers were 10 discounted tickets per show 4 discounted tickets per show accustomed to trying out their material in front approaching maximum, and “Scenes from A Day at the the of THE ALEX FILM SOCIETY! 10 free tickets per year 4 free tickets per year of live audiences. In a passage adapted from his Program acknowledgement Races” looked like another hit. q Individual - $35 book Groucho, Harpo, Chico and sometimes Zeppo, q Supporting Member - $250 2 discounted tickets per show Copyright © 1973 by Joseph Adamson III, renewed 2001. author Joe Adamson explains how the process 8 discounted tickets per show 2 free tickets per year All rights reserved. worked for their MGM films A Night at the Opera 8 free tickets per year and A Day at the Races.) Program acknowledgement q Senior/Student - $25 Film Historian/Filmmaker Joe Adamson is the author of 1 discounted ticket per show Groucho, Harpo, Chico and sometimes Zeppo and other “Scenes from A Day at the Races” was too VOICE q Patron - $100 (full time student or senior 65+) Journal of the Alex Film Society 6 discounted tickets per show books. He is also Writer-Editor of The Marx Brothers in a bizarre to be called quaint but too old- 6 free tickets per year Nutshell and Director-Editor-Co-Writer of the Emmy-winning fashioned to be called novel. Vaudeville W.C. Fields Straight Up, both documentaries once on PBS and was on its way out, but this wasn’t really Please list your two favorite films: now on DVD. vaudeville, and it wasn’t really a play either, ______________________________________________ since it told half of its story live and half Become a member of ______________________________________________ of it by proxy with slides and expository monologues. The shows were five times a day, six days a week, and for eight weeks. The boys battle for the hand of Esther Muir. (1955 20th Century Fox) Century 20th (1955 Writers George Seaton, Robert Pirosh, and as a question might always come across better if it was turned into a Event running time is approximately 2 hours. hours. 2 approximately is time running Event Al Boasberg had followed along, and held statement. (Al Boasberg’s famous line upon Groucho taking Harpo’s Fred Zinnemann. Fred Directed by by Directed conferences with the clowns between each pulse, “Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped,” wouldn’t get Agnes de Mille. de Agnes by by of the fifty-minute shows that were spaced a laugh if it went “Is he dead or has my watch stopped?” because Unforgettable ballet sequence and choreography choreography and sequence ballet Unforgettable at handy intervals such as 12:30, 3:00, 5:00, people would sit and wait for the funny answer to come.) Groucho’s Gloria Graham and Eddie Albert. Eddie and Graham Gloria 7:30, and 9:30, to give them time to decide retort to Siegfried Rumann’s beard, “Aren’t you a fugitive from a Steiger, Rod Jones, Shirley MacRae, Gordon Starring Starring what had worked and what hadn’t and to mattress?” didn’t make the grade either way, and they dropped it. picture as big as all outdoors!” And it still is. still it And outdoors!” all as big as picture retire into a corner for a minute and quickly His excuse for Harpo and Chico’s existence, “They must have come ranch hand. When first released it was described as “A motion motion “A as described was it released first When hand. ranch come up with something that would. These hearts of their sweethearts, despite the interference of an evil evil an of interference the despite sweethearts, their of hearts out of a test tube,” didn’t quite go over, but its replacement, “You were perhaps the most dynamic of script It’s the story of a couple of young cowboys trying to win the the win to trying cowboys young of couple a of story the It’s just rub a lamp and they appear,” did fine. A reference to a doused conferences, and, given the cold-water- Oklahoma at the turn of the last century. last the of turn the at Oklahoma wristwatch, “I’d rather have it rusty than disappear,” became “I’d in-the-face impetus of a daily audience, Rodgers and Hammerstein landmark musical takes you back to to back you takes musical landmark Hammerstein and Rodgers rather have it rusty than gone,” and then “I’d rather have it rusty than winning winning this songs, showstopping timeless, with Filled Oscar® the comedy minds of the company found missing.” A line that went “That’s the most obnoxious proposal I’ve themselves startled into wittiness like ever had” was not getting the laughs it seemed to deserve, and so it dancing tenderfeet. Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 2 and 8 pm only pm 8 and 2 at 2010 10, April Saturday, became a “revolting” proposal, a “disgusting” proposal, an “offensive” The Marx Brothers A Day At The Races The At Day A Brothers Marx The They found that something that didn’t suit proposal, a “repulsive” proposal. Still not funny enough. It became people when phrased “disagreeable” and “distasteful,” and it bombed altogether. When it 8 pm only pm 8 Vol. 16. No. 2 April 10, 2010, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m No. 2 April 10, 16. Vol. was a “nauseating” proposal, it was hilarious. One blank spot in the 2 pm & pm 2 show, just previous to the bedroom scene, was filled only with Harpo Glendale, CA 91222-0807 CA Glendale, at at making faces at Chico to the effect that Groucho was going to get in P. O. Box 4807, 4807, Box O. P. June 26 June , , trouble with some seductress, and a comedy scene seemed called for. Saturday, Saturday, (cont’d on page 4) .org 818.243.2539 Tickets: Oklahoma! of our time! time! our of Film Calendar Film The best loved musical musical loved best The AlexFilmSociety www. The Brothers On Film see every day.” If any of the contestants happened to say it while they were on y the 1920s, the Marx Brothers the air, they won an extra $100. When Bhad become one of America’s they said the word a dilapidated stuffed favorite theatrical acts. Under Chico’s duck would drop from the ceiling with management, and with Groucho’s the $100 attached. creative direction, the brothers’ vaudeville act led to them becoming Dozens of celebrity guests appeared stars on Broadway, first with a musical over the years including: Phyllis Diller, revue, I’ll Say She Is (1924–1925) and Ray Bradbury, Joe Louis, Liberace, then with two musical comedies, The Johnny Weissmuller, Ernie Kovacs, Tor Cocoanuts (1925–1926) and Animal Johnson, Frankie Avalon and author Crackers (1928–1929). AA DayDay atat William Peter Blatty, who used his prize money to write THE EXORCIST. Paramount signed the bothers and the Races 19371937 the Races You Bet Your Life produced their early films before they left to join Irving Thalberg at MGM for 111 minutes roucho Marx was the emcee and A Night at the Opera. Brother Gummo M-G-M Gstar of this quiz show heard on appeared on stage but never on film radio from 1947 thru 1957. ABC, NBC and Zeppo was featured in the first five DIRECTED by and CBS all aired the series at various movies before joining Gummo as times. The filmed television show a major Hollywood talent agent. Sam Wood was seen on NBC from 1950 until September of 1961. SCREENPLAY Producer John Guedel developed the Love Happy (1949) show and found sponsorship. At that Slick Hare Robert Pirosh, George Seaton. A Night in Casablanca (1946) George Oppenheimer time Groucho was not making movies, and had not been successful on the WARNER BROS. 1947 The Big Store (1941) Director of Photography radio. Guedel happened to see a special 8 Mins. Technicolor with Groucho and Bob Hope, where Directed by Friz Go West (1940) Joseph Ruttenberg they ad-libbed very well. He convinced Freleng the skeptical Groucho to take the lead, At the Circus (1939) CAST and invest in 50% of the show, in part Story By Tedd Pierce by saying that he was “untouchable” Michael Maltese The Marx Brothers Room Service (1938) at ad-libbing, but not at following (Groucho, Chico, and Harpo), Produced by Edward a script. Since Groucho and the Tall showgirls were perfect comic foils for A Day at the Races (1937) Allan Jones, Maureen O’Sullivan, Groucho’s tough line of questioning.