Quote of the Week

If I'm such a legend, then why am I so lonely?

-Judy Garland

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Quote of the Week

I have to act to live.

-Laurence Olivier

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Quote of the Week

So many beautiful women and so little time.

-John Barrymore

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Quote of the Week

It was a dedicated life then. You had no social life. You had to have lunch or dinner, but it was always spent talking over work—talking over stories or cutting or titles.

-Lillian Gish

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Book Review: Hail! Hail! Euphoria! Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup the Greatest War Movie Ever Made

Hail! Hail! Euphoria! Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup the Greatest War Movie Ever Made

Roy Blount. Jr.

HarperCollins, 2010

If you want to know the definition of a “gookie”*, then you must read Hail! Hail! Euphoria! Roy Blount Jr. approaches his history of the Marx Brothers classic Duck Soup (1933) as a well-read fan, and he gleefully geeks out on bits of trivia like this one.

Hail! Hail! Euphoria! weaves a buoyant shot-by-shot analysis of the anarchic comedy with anecdotes, history and gossip about the Marx clan. There’s a nice history of the brothers, including a revealing tribute their devoted and determined mother Minnie (she sounds like a character. I would have liked to have seen her in the movies). Blount also pays tribute to matronly straight woman Margaret Dumont and director Leo McCarey, who was out of his element with the Marx boys, but directed a masterpiece nevertheless.

Blount’s research is extensive, and there are footnotes on nearly every page. Sometimes the footnotes take up most of the page. This often drove me crazy; I even threw the book down a couple of times because I was tired of constantly switching gears.

Despite my little fits, I couldn’t think of a bit of information that I didn’t want in the book or of a better way that it could have been presented. The movie is crazy, and the Marx Brothers are crazy, so a decent book about them has got to be crazy as well. I realized I was like one of the Marx's dupes—this book was kicking me in the butt, cutting the pockets out of my trousers, and destroying my hat, but it was brilliant, so I had to take it.

Hail! Hail! Euphoria! will be rewarding for classic movie fans and goofy bliss for Marx Brothers lovers.

*The Gookie is one of Harpo Marx’s most familiar crazy expressions—he bugs out his eyes, puffs out his cheeks and makes a fish face with his lips.