Description

Don’t pity their mother Minnie Marx: she probably died laughing. These zany brothers exited the vaudeville stage for Hollywood in 1929 and became comic legends. In their fifth and best movie, a wealthy dowager, played by the redoubtable Margaret Dumont, recruits Groucho, Harpo, and Chico to save the bankrupt tin-pot republic of Freedonia. In a breathless 70 minutes, Minnie’s boys skewer dictators, authoritarian governments, diplomacy, and the law so mercilessly that the film was banned in Italy by Mussolini. Ranked #5 on the AFI’s list of the funniest American films of all time. Part of The Music Hall Film Club.

NR • 1h 9m • US

PLUS: A classic short by another vaudevillean-turned-idol-of-the-comic-screen, W.C. Fields!