The Cocoanuts (1929) Review

This wildly inconsistent movie catapulted the Marx Brothers to fame on the eve of the Great Depression and heralded a new form of utterly insane humor. Long before Monty Python or even the Goon Show, the Marx Brothers brought savage wit, inspired lunacy, and irreverence toward all authority to the big screen. Over eighty years later,  are they still funny?

The Marx Brothers burst onto the scene and achieved stardom quickly, or so it probably seemed to the American people of the 1930’s. Instead, the Marx family had spent many years traveling and performing while grooming their sons for success on the Vaudeville circuit. Sons of immigrants, they were part of a Jewish invasion of American humor, much like the British invasion of pop thirty years later.

The Cocoanuts was their first film and an adaptation of a smash hit on Broadway, not to mention anywhere else they toured with it. Fast talking, absurd sight gags, and a mocking hostility toward authority were their trademarks and Americans ate it up. Yet superstardom would not have been possible for them except for that great innovation in cinemas: sound. The timing was perfect for Groucho’s quips and Chico’s flimflamming to hit the big screen. Then there was Harpo’s mute horn honking and harp playing to add to the madness. Oh yeah, there was Zeppo to play straight man, if anybody noticed him at all.

 

The film begins with the title and production credits superimposed over a negative image of flappers dancing, firmly fixing it in the pre-stock market crash era of the roaring 20s. A cast card uses pictures as well as words to list the cast, much as a silent film might have. Which makes sense, since this is an early talkie.

Transitioning to an obvious sound stage covered in sand, a hyperactive beach scene starts the show. Here we see pre-code Hollywood film making at its most superficial, with large amounts of young lovelies showing off their bodies “exercising” in the first of many song and dance routines. Oh so many song and dance routines…

A lingering shot of one young woman lounging would seem to be a character introduction, but turns out to be merely window dressing to entertain the male viewers. She may be the epitome of the ideal beauty from the 1920’s, but where is the story?

Ah, a sign. No, not a divine one, even if we were praying for the dancing to end. Now the story starts at the Hotel de Cocoanut, run by Mr. Hammer (Groucho Marx). All is not rosy in sun kissed Florida, for he faces a bell hop rebellion. I really hate when those happen.

Fortunately for Mr. Hammer, he is a brilliant orator and master of double speak. Having convinced the unpaid that they do not wish to be “wage slaves,” the hotel owner receives a telegram with good news. This quickly raises hopes of wealthy clients coming. “It’s from Western Union – and they have lots of money,” reports the master manipulator of the logic impaired.

Did I mention that all of the bellhops except their leader were young women? Well, you know what that means. No, not that, get your mind out of the gutter. It means another dance routine! This time with jazz hands! Oh the pain…

Poor Zeppo Marx, he really got the short end of the stick on this production. While he is billed as Jamison, if you do not watch carefully you will miss him. That is how much he blends into the set, it is as if he was wearing camouflage. I felt so sorry for him I put that screen capture up to prove he was in the movie.

Oh well, back to the plot. Wait, I mean the beginning of the plot. It has something to do with a dueling couple of couples.

In this corner, we have couple number one. They are the bad guys, because of his moustache and her seductive air. But mainly because of the moustache. Penelope (Kay Francis) is an old acquaintance of Yates (Cyril Ring), a man obsessed with marrying into money. But the vamp wants quicker money and has a plan for a heist.

In the opposing corner, we have couple number two. They are the good guys, because he is poor and aspiring while she is young and blond. But mainly because she is blond. Bob (Oscar Shaw) is a theoretically young man hoping to become an architect. Polly (Mary Eaton) is from a wealthy family and is blond. They sing about being together, so you know their love is real and true.

Being a pre-code movie, this means Penelope and Bob can openly leer at Bob and Polly kissing. Despite the fact that Yates is trying to marry Polly and Penelope is trying to steal from her family, they do not recognize their mark at first. Sorry, suspension of disbelief has failed to engage, much like Yates and Polly. At least the scene stopped the singing.

While all of that does not sort itself out, Mr. Hammer tries to con Mrs. Potter (Margaret Dumont) into buying a share of his Florida real estate development. With his painted on moustache and eyebrows, he looks very trustworthy, I must say. Why Mrs. Potter was not swayed by the sewer pipe sample, I do not know.

Believe it or not, Mr. Hammer does attempt to run the hotel. Note that I did not write “run it well.” Zeppo is involved in the scene as well, if you can spot him. Silliness ensues, but it takes the entrance of the remaining two Marx Brothers for the madness to reach critical mass. Harpo and Chico are like an injection of nitrous oxide. You can take that as either use of the gas, both apply. One is more fun than the other and so is the other.

I often wonder how people first reacted to seeing Harpo inserting his leg into anyone’s free hand without warning. Being a little kid when I did, I immediately knew that I must attempt this myself. That would make Harpo the official bad influence of the movie, right? Kids always loved him and his insane, but childlike, persona.

Chico, on the other hand, is the guy you hope your daughter never brings home. A riff on Italian con artists and lotharios, he is a stereotype of the bustling New York immigrant neighborhoods the Marx Brothers grew up in. What makes him amusing is how dim a bulb he turns out to be while trying to scam others.

One of the best things about watching these brothers of blood and comedy is the completely random weirdness they would join in. Not giving away how they ended up copying the famous minutemen image makes it difficult to relay how sublimely silly it was. Trust me, it is hilarious.

I also have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell to you cheap. It overlooks Cocoanut Manor and will be worth a lot of money some day. You can trust me on that too.

One of my favorite lines from the movie occurs when Chico espouses his philosophy about money and how he would kill for it: “I kill you for money. Ha ha, nah, you’re my friend, I kill you for nothing.” Harpo looks dubious for some odd reason.

Harpo never says anything, but somehow he gets some of the best lines. A good example of this is when the local detective, Hennesy (Basil Ruysdael), spots them and delivers a stern warning that he will be watching them. When he flashes his badge dramatically, Harpo flashes his booze dramatically. Since this was during Prohibition, it is very daring, not to mention ridiculous.

While Harpo Marx never got to speak, his sight gags and musical moments were always eagerly awaited by fans. Here we see him play the oboe, not his usual instrument of choice.  Eventually he does get around to playing the harp and very well especially since he was self taught. This is the only time on screen you will see the real Adolph Marx, according to his autobiography. Once he touched the strings he stopped acting.

Quite the talented guy for a second grade dropout. I do not mean he was a terrible dropout, in fact he was an over achiever in the art of departing school early – he only made it half a year through the second grade. True fact. He also carried out a secret spy mission when touring the Soviet Union in 1933, one of many amazing things that happened during the life of one of the world’s greatest dropouts.

I gather that Margaret Dumont sincerely disliked the brothers and never understood any of the humor involved. Since much of it involved Groucho mashing her, it is somewhat understandable. Better yet, it guaranteed her performances were perfect as the bewildered and annoyed women she always played.

Ever wonder where cartoons and TV shows got the idea for multiple people wandering around multiple doors while almost running into each other? Wonder no more, for the heist part of the picture features a frenetic farce of door opening and closing with chasing and hiding. Somehow the heist is successful amidst the chaos.

“Why a duck?”

And that is all I will say about that particular scene, other than it is about the auctioning off of plots. I understand that the plot to the movie was sold on the cheap, too.

Since there is an auction, there also has to be singing and dancing. That is the norm in Florida, right?

Mary Eaton shows off her legs, singing voice, and dancing skills as she performs “The Monkey Doodledoo” in front of dancers dressed in feathery nightmares for costumes. They are joined by the flappers from the opening credits, who sadly are no longer in the negative. Which is more than I can say about my opinion of the routine.

Big things were expected for Eaton, but bless her -- the girl simply could not act. It was genuinely painful to watch her try. To everyone’s surprise, it was the tall actress with a lisp that become a star in the 30’s. Yes, Kay Francis was the other breakout from this film, though her career flamed out by the time WWII broke out.

The big auction begins, shenanigans of all kinds are committed, and hearts are broken. Will true love save the day? Will Mr. Hammer make an honest living? What about Bob? Where did Zeppo go?

All those questions and many more you do not want answered are answered in the finale. If you can survive the song and dance routines…

Thoughts

Humor is often a situational concept deeply rooted in the culture of the moment. On rare occasions, comedy transcends time and cultures, managing to amuse and entertain even if the audience does not get all the jokes. As a child, I found the Marx Brothers to be hilarious and now that I am considerably older they seem to be even more amusing than I recalled. Part of that is because I now understand some things I could not as a child, which is a testimony to how many levels the humor was working on.

I will say this, I am very glad The Cocoanuts was not the first Marx Brothers film I saw. Much of it is a dreary trudge through boring song and dance, plus a lead couple that have an amazing lack of chemistry. Of course, it would have helped if either Bob or Polly showed an iota of personality between them.

Every time any of the Marx Brothers show up on screen it becomes a completely different movie. Just as you think you cannot take another life sapping song, they show up to breathe life into things. One could almost believe the fast forward button was invented by someone who had watched the movie. Thankfully, all DVD players have that wonderful ability to skip entire scenes.

So that begs the question: Is The Cocoanuts a good movie?

No, it is not. The plot is a wafer thin confection created to string together the disparate scenes. The acting ranges from atrocious to somnambulic with few exceptions. It feels like the producers were determined to show off that it was a talkie by throwing in as much singing as possible. You will be impressed by this! You will marvel at hearing people on screen sing! While later films of the Marx variety feature lots of singing, it was usually organic to the story and did not interrupt the flow of the story.

However bad the story may be, the scenes with the Marx Brothers are worth sitting through the utter dreck that is the rest of the film. For an introduction to their comedy, I suggest their next film, Animal Crackers instead. I recommend this film to lovers of comedy, Marx Brothers fans, and classic movie buffs.  It is relatively family friendly and rated G, but be warned there is innuendo the kids will not get. In fact, many adults will miss it.

Technical

My copy of The Cocoanuts is from The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection six disc box set put out by Universal, which has their first five films made at Paramount and a documentaries DVD. I will be reviewing all of them (and more) in the future, so consider yourself warned.

The box set is a high quality issue, being of the cardboard “book” format. It unfolds with three movies on each side, each on a clear plastic mount. The center contains a permanently attached full color booklet with information about the films and other goodies.

Since the movie is from 1929, the picture is 1.33:1 or 4:3 ratio. The DVD is single layer, which is more than adequate given the black and white era it is from. This was not great cinematography, but an adapted stage play after all. Due to being pieced together from various prints, the picture quality varies radically. Many scenes are from poor worn out film stock and we are lucky to have them at all given the age of the movie. Check the screen captures for examples of what I am writing about.

Sound quality is much better, thankfully. The restoration work done there is laudable and not one of the lines is muddy sounding. Given the rapid fire jokes, pun, quips, and music by Irving Berlin, this is important. Subtitles in French and Spanish are available.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

 

 

 

Okay, I don’t know why I am bothering warning anyone. It isn’t like the ending can’t be seen a mile away. Like Mrs. Potter, it is better looking at that distance.

The big dramatic scene involving Bob being framed by Yates and Penelope is painfully predictable. Given the innocence of the time, I can see how it would have been effective, but it is executed at a high school play level. At least it gave us a moment for a deeply touching scene between Harpo and Polly.

I lied about that, because Mary Eaton could not act. Not even badly – she simply could not act. Also, Harpo did not touch her. This idea of him playing the comforter to a heart broken woman became a running meme in the Marx Brothers movies, so it is worth noting.

The jail break is amusing and showed just how absurd things could get when Chico and Harpo paired up. Later on, the commentary of Groucho while dealing with the mute kleptomaniac is simply superb, especially when he finds his own stolen goods on him. Oh and Bob is there too. But where is Zeppo?

Eaton was not a bad singer, but having Polly sing at her forced engagement costume party was just bizarre. Yes, I typed “engagement costume party.” Did I mention that it has a Spanish/Mexican theme? Here the film gets a wee bit surreal, to say the least.

Ah, found Zeppo. He’s hiding behind Chico and has the least extreme costume of the bunch. That way he can hide more effectively.

The most insane performance goes to Basil Ruysdael, which is quite an achievement when surrounded by Groucho, Chico, and Harpo. After having his shirt stolen while he was wearing it, he launches into the song “I Want My Shirt.” It is deliriously silly and he plays it up while clearly having a great time. Then there is Margaret Dumont looking like she would like to be anywhere else. She radiates hostility to the number throughout.

Harpo’s drunk routine is so random that it becomes one of the most memorable gags from the movie. Just look at that face!

Harpo was not the only musically gifted member of the family. Here we get to see Chico tickle the ivories for the first time, including his signature gun finger as he shoots off a note.

Yeah, like this ending wasn’t telegraphed from the first scenes with the two couples. It is also an excuse for me to throw a couple more shots with Kay Francis in them up.

At least Zeppo got to wave goodbye with the others at the end. Chico seems a bit out of it, doesn’t he?