Review: A Day at the Races

 

Maureen O’Sullivan owns a sanitarium for rich patients, and when one of her wealthiest patients (played by Margaret Dumont) seems about ready to walk out, O’Sullivan resorts to hiring the old lady’s favourite doctor, Dr. Hackenbush (Groucho Marx), unawares that the good doctor is actually a horse doctor. Throw in a nefarious scheme by a racetrack owner (Douglass Dumbrille) to try and buy the sanitarium to turn it into a casino, plus roles for Harpo and Chico Marx as a jockey and tipster, respectively, and you’ve kinda sorta got a movie. I guess. Allan Jones plays the romantic lead, a nightclub singer who is also racehorse owner.

 

Directed by Sam Wood, this 1937 Marx Brothers comedy impressed me even less than the frankly irritating “A Night at the Opera” (Ironically enough, I much prefer Queen’s “A Night of the Opera” to the just-OK follow-up “A Day at the Races” as well), also directed by the aptly named Wood. Way too long, this once again barely has a plot that The Marx Brothers barely bother paying any attention to. The setup seemed lacking and quite nonsensical to me. For a while, I couldn’t work out whether Margaret Dumont’s character actually knew her own doctor by sight or not, which sounds stupid when you think about it- and it is- but it’s so clumsily done that I honestly wasn’t sure. Also, I still find it weird that no one was sceptical of the guy with the painted on moustache and stupidly exaggerated ‘silly walk’ (Sorry, but the only funny ‘silly walker’ is John Cleese).

 

There’s a lot more music in this one too, or as I call it ‘padding’. A Day at the Races? More like 15 minutes at the races. Having said that, the big quasi Busby-Berkeley song and dance number is at least accomplished enough that I could appreciate it, even as a hater of musicals. That girl must’ve gotten awfully dizzy after all that spinning! Unfortunately, the subsequent ‘comic’ dancing with Groucho was less enjoyable. After that we get Chico playing the damn piano again, followed by a scene of Harpo doing the same, before getting back on the damn harp again, followed three minutes later by Groucho dancing again. Are we sure this one wasn’t meant to be “A Night at the Opera”? Like I said, padding.

 

As I said with the previous film, I get the influence of The Marx Brothers more than I get the appeal of the Marx Brothers themselves. All of Groucho’s scenes are merely setups for his one-liners. It takes you out of the scene because they’re just smart arse lines for the sake of it. Once again Groucho ruins the story by constantly acting above it to the point where he seems a snarky observer to it. Meanwhile, the scene where Chico weasels money out of Groucho on a horse race tip stops the film dead because it’s clearly just a ‘bit’. We’re led to believe that time is ticking, but Chico is piss farting around trying to con Groucho for what feels like an hour. The scene’s also not remotely funny, but then comedy is subjective, I suppose. The scene where ‘doctor’ Groucho is demonstrating his abilities of diagnosis with Chico and Harpo ‘assisting’ him is yet another bit of schtick that ultimately has nothing to do with anything. It’s also an incredibly stupid scene where Harpo eats something awful again for supposed comic value, a glass thermometer this time. Speaking of stupid, why would a doctor have a bottle marked ‘Poison’ in his possession? Huh? As for Chico, I still don’t understand what his supposed comic purpose/talent actually is? To talk-a funny-a like-a this? Um, whatever.

 

The Marx Brothers once again clearly only cared about getting their schtick in here, and paid no attention to plot or character. Well, I care about plot and character, and didn’t find these guys remotely funny anyway. Do any of these people know how to make an actual film? Not from evidence here. Yes, there’s a plot but it’s flimsy and no one here seems to give a shit about sticking to it. I get the anarchic idea of The Marx Brothers, but you can’t just be all anarchy all of the time if you’re actually making a feature film. Sadly, no one seems to have told those involved here. If you’re a Marx Brothers fan, good for you, go ahead and enjoy this film. But I can only report on my own feelings, and I had a miserable time with this one. The screenplay is by the trio of George Oppenheimer (“The Feminine Touch”, “A Yank at Oxford”), Robert Pirosh (The solid “Hell is for Heroes”), and George Seaton (“Miracle on 34^th Street”, writer-director of “Airport”).

 

Rating: D