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The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection (The Cocoanuts / Animal Crackers / Monkey Business / Horse Feathers / Duck Soup) |  | Directors: Joseph Santley, Leo McCarey, Norman Z. McLeod, Robert Florey, Victor Heerman
Actors: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx, Thelma Todd
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $59.98
Buy New: $41.87
as of 9/4/2010 12:32 PDT details
You Save: $18.11 (30%)
New (23) Used (11) from $33.48
Seller: moviemars
Rating:  128 reviews
Sales Rank: 2255
Format: Box set, Black & White, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: G (General Audience)
Region: 1
Discs: 6
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 403 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 6 x 1.8
MPN: MCAD21250D
ISBN: 0783255489
UPC: 025192125027
EAN: 9780783255484
ASIN: B0002MHDYW
Theatrical Release Date: August 28, 1930
Release Date: November 9, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
INCLUDES: COCOANUTS ANIMAL CRACKERS MONKEY BUSINESS HORSE FEATHERSDUCK SOUP
There will be a debate of which 2004 DVD collection of Marx Brothers films was better. This Universal release of the better known Paramount-produced films are the only ones starring all four brothers: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. The Warner collection contains less-vital films, but is loaded with extras and commentaries. The Universal collection contains only 20 minutes of interviews from NBC's Today Show--interesting but short--with Harpo, Groucho, and Harpo's son Bill from the '60s and '70s. All of the films in this collection were released on DVD by Image Entertainment in 2000 and the prints look the same, which isn't necessarily bad; one just wishes a major restoration had been undertaken. The films--packaged handsomely with a booklet--are essential Marx Brothers, their first five films made from 1929 to 1933. The least timeless is their first, The Cocoanuts, based on their Broadway hit. The film--one of the first full talkies--takes place in a hotel with owner Groucho out to grab every dollar. Animal Crackers is the brothers' first classic, a lickety-split comedy about an art theft being investigated by Groucho's alter-image, Captain Spaulding. For introducing youngsters to the work of Marx, Monkey Business is the best way. The shenanigans start right at the start as the brothers stowaway on a luxury liner. It's their first film that wasn't based on a play, as they endeavored to find new material. Horse Feathers gave them more fertile ground plus a sure-fire Hollywood director at the helm (Norman McLeoad). Their fantasia of college life includes the riotous football-game finale. Music, always a key part of their plays and films is given more weight here and includes Groucho's theme, "I'm Against It." Music is again key as the musicals of the era are spoofed in the brothers' undisputed masterpiece, Duck Soup. From a land called Fredonia, Groucho plays a slapdash ruler who rewrites the rules of governing, leading to a most memorable war with Sylvania (so war gets lampooned. too). Duck Soup also boasts the most famous Marx brothers sketch: Groucho trying to fool his mirror. --Doug Thomas
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 128
 Classic Marx Brothers not classy presentation November 12, 2004
Wayne Klein (My Little Blue Window, USA)
385 out of 392 found this review helpful
The Marx Brothers hit their peak with "Duck Soup". Sure, "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races" were both bigger box office hits and, while both those latter films have their moments they just can't quite compete with the inspired anarchy of "Duck Soup". Let's start with the positives first. It doesn't look like most of the films have any footage missing as near as I can tell. Sure, some of the editing still looks ragged but most of their early films (and films from that era for that matter) have that "look". The first three movies are a bit static looking (since the first two were based on their stage plays that's not a surprise--they look like photographed stage plays). With "Monkey Business" and "Horse Feathers" The Marx Brothers began to develop a style that was a bit more cinematic. All five films are essential for fans.
Now the bad news. Universal has been slapping together boxed sets lately of older films and TV series with little to no extras and without any effort at restoration. They're where Warner Brothers was about 6 years ago. The prints often don't look as sharp as they could and there's plenty of analog blemishes to muddy up the picture as well. Digitally many of these flaws could easily be corrected on these prints. Since the original negatives are long gone (they were shot on nitrate stock. Nitrate stock is quite unstable begins to disintegrate and shrink after a couple of decades). Unfortunately, we're left with prints that are several generations removed from the original negatives which means that these will probably never look perfect. Could they look better? Absolutely as there's been minimal effort to clean them up and none of them look as if there has been an effort to restore them. "Horse Feathers" still appears to be missing some material (unfortunately most of it is probably permanently lost)that probably could have been restored from foreign prints.
The extras are a bit skimpy at best. We get some older "The Today Show" interviews. There's no documentary on The Marx Brothers career, the challenges they faced in reaching an audience and why, ultimately, MGM put them under contract only to dilute their best qualities. I'm also disappointed that there's no audio commentary. Surely former UCLA Professor Howard Suber would have been available to do a commentary on these terrific films? What about vintage newsreels discussing the previews of their movies?
While I appreciate the book, the introductory essay is skimpy. The quotes of Groucho from various films and images from the films/posters was a bright idea it's just that Universal didn't go far enough. A nice short documentary incorporating the interviews included here would have been nice. I appreciate the idea of the book but I also wish that it could be removed from as it is a bit cumbersome in the middle of the accordian style set. Still, the design of the set is quite nice.
I give the films 5 stars for the quality of these classics but 2 stars for the inferior presentation from Universal. It's a pity as Warner has most of the lesser Marx movies but did a marvelous job of restoring them and adding extras including commentaries to them. Considering that Universal has a great restoration department and that they've done a marvelous job of restoring Hitchcock's classic films "Rear Window" and "Vertigo", I'm really disappointed that more effort wasn't made here. It's an example of Hollywood not valuing its past.
Classic Marx, Together at Last! October 10, 2004
Benjamin J Burgraff (Las Vegas)
67 out of 76 found this review helpful
While the Marx Brothers may have enjoyed their greatest commercial successes at MGM, their first films, for Paramount, offer the purest essence of their genius, undiluted; irreverence, bawdiness, spontaneity, and an 'outside the box' approach to society that made everyone a potential target!
With the oft-maligned Zeppo as their resident 'straight man' (a misconception, as the youngest Marx could be every bit as funny as his older brothers), the Marxes were a sensation on Broadway, and their earliest films (THE COCONUTS and ANIMAL CRACKERS) were actually produced in New York, while the brothers continued performing on stage, each night. While these films are dated, and a bit stiff, their cinematic potential was clearly evident, in Groucho's sly asides to the audience, Harpo's brilliant pantomime, and hedonistic, Pan-like pursuit of women, and Chico's comic fracturing of the English language.
MONKEY BUSINESS, their first feature made in Hollywood, benefits greatly from the more sophisticated Paramount production facilities, and a script far wittier than the 'pie-in-your-face' slapstick that Hollywood was cranking out. If you think A NIGHT AT THE OPERA offered the ultimate 'stowaway' sequence, watch MONKEY BUSINESS, and see the mayhem the boys could REALLY produce when they cut loose! HORSE FEATHERS is equally good, as Groucho runs a grand old college to the ground, while his 'son', Zeppo(!), pursues the 'Campus Widow'...along with Harpo, Chico, and even Groucho!
DUCK SOUP, their final film at Paramount, is the very best of the collection, and one of greatest film comedies ever made, period! Groucho mismanages the country of Freedonia into war, as Chico and Harpo 'spy' on him. For a film over seventy years old, the film is remarkably timely, with a musical climax, as Groucho manipulates the government and people into a war-crazed frenzy, that seems astonishingly topical, considering our own political climate!
Ultimately, the Marx Brothers were, perhaps, too sophisticated for audience's tastes, DUCK SOUP flopped, commercially, and Paramount dropped the team, opening the door for MGM and Irving Thalberg to hire and 'reinvent' them (as Zeppo moved on to become an agent/manager).
Combined with the recently-released boxed collection of MGM/RKO/UA Marx titles, the Paramount collection nearly completes the entire Marx output as a team, with only LOVE HAPPY, Harpo's 'pet' project (which could only be financed by appearances by Chico and Groucho), not included in the collections (the brothers would all appear in THE STORY OF MANKIND, seven years after LOVE HAPPY, but not as a team).
This boxed set is a MUST, whether you're a Marx fan, or just someone who loves classic comedy! Buy it...I guarantee you WON'T be disappointed!
Classics Deserving of the Name "Classic" March 9, 2006
Aaron Rider (Somewhere in the USA. Maybe even I don't know where I am.)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
I watched these as a little kid over and over and over. They evidently warped my little mind, as I now am employed as a circus clown.
These movies may not change your life as much as they have mine, but they are really dang funny.
Other people have said things about the transfer quality (IMHO it's quite acceptable) and the lack of special features. I personally don't care at all about the lack of special features in the set. I bought it for the movies I know and love, which this set adequately provides.
Bottom line? If you like classic comedy at all, buy this set. And get the other Marx Brothers set, too. It has some great movies on it, too.
Same version as before - NOT EDITED! October 31, 2004
marxfan
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
I have already watched the DVDs and I cannot see any edits. It is a pity that Universal didn't try to restore some scenes, but as far as I can tell these movies have not been edited. They are the same as the video versions which have been around for years and the same as the earlier DVD version by Image Entertainment. The cut mentioned by another reviewer in the "We are going to war" number has NOT been made. I have compared it to the script published in 1972, and its all there.
Why a duck? Why-a no extras? February 12, 2006
Scott Ross (Raleigh, NC United States)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
The Collection, which includes all the great Paramount movies starring the 4 Marxes ("Animal Crackers," "Monkey Business," "Horse Feathers" and the peerless "Duck Soup") plus the rather dreadful "The Cocoanuts" is a gorgeous boxed set featuring stunning digital transfers of sound and picture. But -- and this is a big qualifier -- the so-called extras consist of some of the trailers and, on the "bonus" DVD, three vintage television interviews.
If nothing else, couldn't Universal have added the special "Monkey Business" trailer substitute in which the Marxes re-create one of their "I'll Say She Is" routines? The Paramount newsreel footage of the Marxes and W.C. Fields? After all, these short subjects were included in the documentary "The Marx Bros. in a Nutshell" and presumably exist in the Universal/Paramount vaults.
These omissions would be less disconcerting if the set wasn't so large and expensive. That it's well worth owning for any Marxist goes without saying. But would it have killed them to give us a little bit more?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 128
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