Duck Soup stars the four Marx Brothers, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo.
This movie also stars one of their frequent leading ladies in their movies, Margaret Dumont who is normally the focus for Groucho and most of his insults and innuendos.
In this movie, it is based on a country named Freedonia whose government was mismanaged and so the leader was replaced by none other than Rufus T. Firefly, aka: Groucho.
This film starts out silly enough, with a pot of ducks and that is your first clue as to how zany it is.
Of course there is a rival country that wants a revolution to happen in Freedonia so that they can gain control over the country. They employ Chico and Harpo as spies and well, if you know the Marx Brothers, you know how well that was going to go.
This film is filled with a lot of sight gags, many of which the Marx Bros are famous for.
As the two countries go to war, check out all the different references to many of the wars in US
history, Revolutionary, Civil, World War I, and II with the different hats and helmuts and uniforms.
There is also a bit of singing, especially in the first half and not so much in the second.
There is one point where they come upon a piano and Harpo just starts to play the piano strings as a harp inside but it is only for a quick moment, unfortunately.
I've seen most of the Marx Bros movies over the years and they are some of my favorites for some great wit and slapstick humor.
Groucho is always quick with the snappy banter, one-liners, and double entendres and poor Margaret Dumont was the victim of much of it.
Always great for a laugh!
