Word: harpo
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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...
...most Marx movies, all that matters is enough nonsense to take the curse off such inevitable interruptions as Chico's piano solo, Harpo's turn at the harp, the romantic subplot and the musical production routines. As the author of Love Happy's basic story, Harpo has treated himself to some bright comic ideas and a wealth of sight gags, some of which seem to have improved with time...
...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...