they cut the excruciatingly long bit where Harpo harasses the street vendor.. It wasn't funny at all.. It was annoying and childish.. Then, of course, they had to really overdo it with Harpo in his tub.. It was awful..
shareA few months ago i would have agreed with you but i've watched the movie (and that scene, obviously) lots lately. Groucho was one the only one i ever paid much attention to, then i started to find Chico hilarious and now the childish antics of Harpo are making me laugh lots too.
I do agree it is somewhat overdone and well frankly i'm not quite sure how the vendor himself didn't hear Harpo splashing about in his lemonade tub sooner. Yup it's silly but, in my opinion anyway, very funny just the same.
One of THE silliest moments for me is when Groucho gets the vase/pot stuck on his head and gets his face painted onto it - right in the middle of a battle. LOL just why? Utter nonsense and just about as daft as it can get. Brilliant.
It took a while for Chico to grow on me but now I find him funny. I still don't care for Harpo. Groucho and Chico are clever where Harpo is just goofy..
shareI find the whole movie to be base humor and hardly laughed. I can't believe so many people love the movie when it's an hour of slapstick, unintelligent jokes and puns, and has a paper thin plot.
share"when it's an hour of slapstick, unintelligent jokes and puns, and has a paper thin plot."
And STILL it's more intelligent and original than any damn thing that'll pop out of Hollywood today. Put that together.
I loved Harpo in this movie, he was always my favorite...and I thought it was hilarious with the street vendor, when they kept getting the wrong hats, and finally when Harpo rolled up his pants and stomped in the lemonade, that was just a riot.
My only problem with the scene is that the street vendor didn't do anything to stir their wrath. He didn't insult them or threaten them, he just asked what was going on. The Brothers are suppose to pick on the big guys, the pompous, the establishment, but the vendor is just a working stiff, hardly the type who needs to have his ego deflated.
shareHe didn't know how to take a joke. Lack of a sense of humor is a killing crime in a Marx bros. movie.
shareIn the Paramount years they were more likely to harrass the undeserving than when they went to MGM. Irving Thalberg made sure everyone they tormented deserved it, but not so in the early days. Harpo, especially, is just a force of pure chaos. If you happen to be there, it's gonna get wierd for you. And it might not be pleasant. But it sure is funny for us!
shareI watched Duck Soup at a school movie night (xx yrs. ago) and I laughed hardest when Harpo rolled up his pants and sloshed around in the lemonade. After that I would try to catch this film on TV (pre-cable, alas) whenever I could, and I noticed that the street vendor scene would end before Harpo sloshes, like that part had been edited for TV. So, OP, it's odd that the scene was shorter at one time.
shareI loved that stuff. It was just trying to be funny. Also, Harpo doesn't harrass the lemonade vendor. The vendor bothers him first after Harpo and Chico harrassed him. Okay, so Harpo did some harrassing but not alone.
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people don't realize that Chico was also excellent at the verbal banter, even matching wits with Groucho!
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I hated that scene too, at first. But the more Marx Bros. I've watched, the more I like Harpo, until he became my favorite. Now I love that scene (pretty much by default)...
I'm the smartest guy around: http://meonvarioustopics.blogspot.com
The vendor takes peanuts, and refuses to pay Harpo for them. Harpo responds by burning the guy's hat. He deserved it. The vendor then wrecks the peanut stand, to which Harpo responds by splashing around in his lemonade. Again, he deserved it.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho
The vendor bits seemed annoying at first, but they did it for so long it somehow took on sort of a manic intensity at some point (although the blond guy was largely such an obnoxious, bizarrely vulgar presence that axing these scenes would have cut down his screen time considerably). Now, what they REALLY should have done away with, is the goofy musical numbers... at least some of them. They´re perhaps not as bad as one would expect such stuff to be, but still... what´s the point? They´re not particularly witty or funny at any point and amount to no more than some irritating horsing around.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan