I just showed this movie to my kids for the first time. My favorite scene since I as a little kid was "going to war" (playing the xylophone on the sodiers helmets, snipping the tops off the helmets etc.) What a gratifying moment for me when I looked over at my four year old son and saw tears of laughter rolling down his face!
How many think this is the funniest scene?
My favorite has long been the loud radio scene....especially when Harpo throws the radio out of the window after shooting it with club soda.
"Sounds like mice"
"Mice!, Mice don't play music!"
"Oh No, how bout the old maestro?"
My favorite sequence is when Harpo turns on a radio by mistake when he thinks it is a safe he is opening and it blares "Stars and Stripes Forever" and we see Groucho and Mrs. Teasdale upstairs just listening at the door to the music. The expressions on their faces are so funny! Then Harpo trying to turn it off is a riot! Frank Drebin of Police Squad! was never as funny.
shareMine is just the whole "Sir, Your shooting your own men!" bit
I'm not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot.
Dean Winchester
Firefly's first meeting with the cabinet and the first meeting of harpo and chico with the other country's leader
"Chicolini: He gets mad because he can't read"
"Cabinet member: I wash my hands of this matter! Firefly: Go ahead and wash your neck too."
Let there be dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons, and necking in the parks
"Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head or tail out of it."
The mirror scene (obviously).
The vendor scene - Chico, Harpo and the big guy all swapping the hats around is just about the funniest scene in ANY movie.
"I'll take you out for a meal with Mr and Mrs Pain. Order up some violent quiche."
One that left me in stitches as well as thinking "what exactly is going on here?!" is the "help is on the way"-segment. The use of sped-up stock footage in that scene is hilarious and way ahead of its time. This film has classic Marx moments in spades, but I don't recall a scene like this in any of their other films. Duck Soup has to be my favourite because of the anarchy and surreal touches.
shareOne I forgot about is Harpo's tattoos - when the dog comes out and barks at Groucho
"I'll take you out for a meal with Mr and Mrs Pain. Order up some violent quiche."
There were SO many! One I loved was Harpo and the
wall safe that turned out to be a radio, the
Paul Revere sequence, Harpo's hilarious recruiting
plackard, 'Join the Army & see the Navy!' and, of
course the classic mirror scene. Yet so many of the
Groucho-Margaret Dumont exchanges were highlights, too!
But, yes, the going to war production was awesome!
Naturally the mirror scene is a classic!
I also love the battle at the end- Harpo walking around with a sign that says "Join the army, see the navy!" And then poor Mrs. Teasdale trying to sing the Fredonia anthem at the end, and the brothers all start throwing things at her. CLASSIC! So ahead of its time!!
"Just close your eyes...but keep your mind wide open."
The mirror scene is great and it is the first time that you could see they are really brothers, because they all look like Groucho when they put on his costume.
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Yep, that spin is my favorite moment in any Marx film.
(But don't ask where all the glass went after the mirror shattered)
If there's no God, then how do you explain Miracle Whip?
If you noticed, there is a very slight pause in time between hitting the mirror and the glass breaking. Obviously a safety precaution on the set.
sharethe whole movie is my favorite scene.
I even quote this line on a daily basis (of course replacing Chicolini name with the person I'm referring to): "Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot and look like an idiot. But don't let that fool you... he REALLY is an idiot!"
Mine is when Pinky and Chicolini appear for the first time, with some stupid costumes, and say "We fool you good, uh?". Priceless.
And the Mexican girl was hot. Just saying...
The whole war sequence is hilarious. I also like the scene where Rufus goes to insult Trentino. .... Really the whole movie is funny.
Back to what the OP said: I wish everyone could get the chance to watch the Brothers' movies when they are young, before they get old and cynical. I guarantee you they'd be Marx fans for life.
The pump don't work, 'cause the vandals took the handle.
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Yeah, my first memory of the Marx Brothers is from when I was really young, maybe around 4 or 5. My brothers and I were sleeping in the basement in front of the tv (our room must've been being painted or something, I can't remember the exact reason), and my dad pulled out an old VHS of Animal Crackers.
I saw the movie for the first time in years just a couple days ago, perhaps for the first time since that night. It was an astounding experience, full of nostalgia.
The pump don't work, 'cause the vandals took the handle.
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i love the hat scene with the guy at the lemonade stand, i love the radio scene, i also love the end overall escpcially when they elect harpo to go out to war and he nearl couldnt get out and when mrs. teasdale was singing and the brothers were throwing fruit at her for singing and i love it when they say someone is recruting more troops and harpo is waling after a tank shoots.
Its's alive! It's alive!
The mirror scene and the hat-switching routine :)
Supermodels...spoiled stupid little stick figures mit poofy lips who sink only about zemselves.
The scene when Firefly is getting ready to meat the "Sylvanian" ambassador, to avert the war, and gets himself so worked up, convincing himself that the ambassador won't take his hand of friendship, that he slaps him when he enters.
Living in the Middle East, it seems to me to be a perfect metaphor for the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
"Sometimes you have to take the bull by the tail, and face the truth" - G. Marx
Que?
Supermodels...spoiled stupid little stick figures mit poofy lips who sink only about zemselves.
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The hat switching scene was hilarious, and of course the mirror scene - we were thrilled to finally see this, as we'd seen the Harpo/Lucy mirror episode about a dozen times over the years.
My 10 y/o daughter loves the scene w/ Harpo where he dives to answer the phone & "talks" on the phone by using different pitches on his horns!
"Are you going to your grave with unlived lives in your veins?" ~ The Good Girl
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Has always been the Mirror Scene. I know they have done it in other films but It always cracks me up.
This sonic transducer is I suppose some kind of audio-vibratory-physio-molecular transport device