Word: groucho
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Love Happy (United Artists) is a Marx Brothers comedy with too little of Groucho's irreverent wit and too much of Chico's irrelevant Italianate chatter. It gets most of its laughs from a welcome abundance of Harpo's funniest clowning in years...
...Marx brothers' sins are those of omission. They just aren't around enough. 25 minutes of the movie are completely wasted in "musical comedy" and backstage life. Harpo, who wrote the story, handles his biggest part superbly but Groucho appears for only five minutes...
...Groucho as Sam Grunion, astigmatic private eye, narrates the story. Fabulously valuable hot diamonds are accidentally stolen by a kleptomaniac tramp (Harpo) on a foraging trip for a group of starving young actors. The seductive Madame Egelinka (Ilona Massey) and her two musclebound minions try to recover the jewels from Harpo throughout the rest of the picture while Chico, a piano-playing mind reader wanders aimlessly about complicating things...
...only is "Love Happy" disappointing in its exceptional incoherence but also in presentation of Groucho's forte, the dialogue, which loses its kick when the mustachioed leer is missing. The special effects like Harpo's trick coat and the much heralded chase are up to standard but there is nothing side-splitting like the stateroom scene in "A Night at the Opera" or the mirror scene from "Duck Soup." "Love Happy," while not nearly up to Marxian standards is still pretty good comedy...
After three viewings, you may be able to remember that "Horsefeathers" is the one in which Chico, Harpo, Groucho, and Zeppo careen through Huxley College in a garbage-wagon chariot, among other conveyances. In "Monkey Business' the Marx boys plague the captain, crew, and passengers of an ocean liner like four hyper-thyroid Nemeses. But plots count for nothing when the Marx Brothers are around. In fact, everything counts for nothing--except unending hysterical laughter--when the Marx Brothers are around...