Word: harpo
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Understandably, the experience has in stilled in Konig a morbid determinism that makes the Goncourt brothers look like Harpo and Chico Marx: "Gone now are February and March, season of drowned men, when ice on the frozen rivers melts, yielding up the winter's harvest of junkies, itinerants and prostitutes. Soon to come are July and August - the jackknife months. Heat and homicide. Bullet holes, knife wounds, fatal garrotings, a grisly procession vomited out of the steamy ghettos of the inner city...
...that there's anything wrong with a little idoriented activity. Harpo Marx, the id of the '30s, manages to be perfectly interesting, as well as completely human. But Emmanuelle, whose only purpose in life seems to be to run around chasing new and pleasurable experiences while her husband is at work or playing polo, misses no chance to degrade herself. If ever a woman asked to be exploited, it's she; her willingness to abandon inhibition takes her finally to a Hong Kong brothel, where she sells herself to three sailors and brings the profits home proudly to Jean...
Phoebe's Charlie was not the legendary saxophonist but a pal nicknamed Harpo. "He had all Harpo Marx's moves down," says Phoebe, "and he played junk instruments like the washtub bass." Charlie introduced her to new music like Spike Jones. Then three years ago, at the age of 20, he died of an overdose...
...extravaganzas anymore, with their water-ballets and cupie-doll tenor heroes thrown in among the more or less emasculated brothers. So Monkey Business from the tacky Paramount days comes as blessed relief, reaffirmation and so on. It is wonderful. This is the one where Groucho, Chico and most importantly Harpo all do imitations of Maurice Chevalier singing "Eef a Nightengale Cood Sin Lak You" and where Grouch announces that "love goes out the door when money comes innuendo". The script was by S.J. Pereiman and it doesn't really matter who directed since it is hardly a film anyway Pereiman...
...movie is peppered with direct steals from famous stars, roles and songs, most of which originated in the '30s. The hunch-backed servant Igor (Marty Feldman) has the bulging eyes and eerie mischievousness of Harpo Marx, or of the Charles Adams cartoon character who later became known as Uncle Fester. He delivers one-liners like Groucho. Cloris Leachman, who does a terrific job of frowning and mugging through an unrewarding part, may have pilfered from Dame Judith Anderson's role in Rebecca as the forbidding keeper of the Baron's castle. Young Frankenstein stalks about with the mad intensity...