6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
During the Florida land boom, the Marx brothers run a hotel, auction off some land, thwart a jewel robbery, and generally act like themselves.
Starring: The Marx Brothers, Groucho Marx, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico MarxComedy | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.2:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH, French
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Note: This film is available as part of The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection.
The Marx Brothers remain one of the most iconic comedy teams in the entire history of show business, including of course their film work. Years of
vaudeville experience and then Broadway stardom meant the siblings came to cinema with personas largely set and with a huge “catalog” of bits they
could utilize for their film work. That said, the movie going public had never really seen anything like the manic proclivities of this familial troupe, and
countless commentators from 1929 (when The Cocoanuts debuted on celluloid) on have attempted to analyze various elements of the
team’s completely unique comedy. While perhaps not especially “meaningful” in any overarching way, I had an unusual response to watching these
new transfers of the first five Marx Brothers feature films (all reportedly sourced from new 4K restorations done by Universal), one probably sparked
by my recent reviewing duties.
Arrow Video’s UK branch recently released
Woody Allen: Six Films 1971-1978, and in doing some background reading in preparation for my reviews of the movies in that set,
more than once I read in various articles comments along the lines of “Allen helped to define Jewish humor” or “Jewish humor simply wouldn’t be
the
same without Allen.” Allen’s patented brand of neurosis, sexual obsession and verbal acuity may indeed be at least a trifecta of Jewish
humor if not the trifecta, but one only need look a bit further back in time to the Marx Brothers for another potent example of the
“mainstreaming” of elements that could well be considered Jewish humor. I'm not suggesting this is the only way to look at the Marx Brothers'
efforts, or even that it's an "important" way, just that it struck me as "being there" for me after having just watched a bunch of Allen films.
In a way, though, the Marx Brothers’ perceived “Jewishness” is a little
more subliminal than Allen’s is in his own films, though for those with the eyes to see, the siblings represent their generation of Jews rather
iconically.
Not only is their verbal humor full of puns and other formalistic hijinks, the very subject matter of many of their jokes tends to focus on social,
political and even economic elements. The very fact that the act is comprised of family is important, with a “me and you against the world”
ambience
that speaks to outcasts (obviously including Jews) to this day. But there’s a “subtext” to many of the early Marx Brothers films, where the
brothers
are the outsiders, virtual interlopers attempting to make sense of a calamitous “new” world, whether that be a hotel, high society, a passenger
ship,
college sports or even a supposed nation in the throes of financial ruin.
What’s fascinating about the early Marx Brothers efforts is how they very
subtly display signs of the assimilative fervor that many first or second generation Jews of that time period experienced, where it became
paramount
(no pun intended, considering the studio which released the early Marx Brothers efforts) to “blend in”. That may seem positively non-intuitive,
given
the Marx Brothers’ predilection toward anarchic behavior and just outright silliness, but when seen through the prism of an early to mid 20th
century
“Jewish identity,” the first five Marx Brothers feature films offer not just laughs galore, but a rather interesting example of so-called “ethnics”
rather
brilliantly invading the American consciousness in an almost subversive way. In this respect, the Marx Brothers become one of the most potent
examples
of what might be termed cultural immigration, where their Jewishness may have been slightly cloaked but no less ingratiating in the long run.
That
“cloaking” may be nowhere more obvious than in the persona of Chico, a Marx who spoke with a faux Italian accent and who seemed to be
something of a grifter at times. Cloaked in another way but perhaps arguably more ostensibly Jewish, at least on one interpretive level, was Harpo,
the weirdly childlike mute who seemed
to
often be the hapless scapegoat in many of the films, the outsider whose very powerlessness (as evidenced by his inability or unwillingness to
speak)
created “problems,” albeit often in a comedic way. The most obvious paradigm of Jewishness is of course Groucho, with his hyperarticulate
verbal
humor and a probably more than slightly lecherous mien which may in fact be a precursor for some of Woody Allen’s more sexually charged
material.
Zeppo, the kind of “forgotten” Marx Brother, and the one whose film persona is probably the blandest, may therefore somewhat ironically be seen as
the best symbol of those
aforementioned assimilative tendences—Zeppo had “learned” how to be an American first, blending in as the troupe’s straight man and therefore
almost seeming like an outsider himself, at least within the insular world of the siblings’ relationships.
The Cocoanuts is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1 (the credits sequence is slightly pillarboxed—see screenshot 20). This is by far the most heterogeneous presentation in the Marx Brothers set, one which varies from very good to pretty rough looking, at several junctures mid-scene for reasons which at times defy logic (i.e., why would a snippet here or there in an intact sequence need to be sourced from a different, and often substandard, element?). Even Anthony Slide's commentary only really touches on this disparity once, in a fairly late downturn in quality which he ascribes to the fact that that particular snippet was removed from the film at one point and had to be recobbled from a secondary source. But this presentation veers back and forth at several points. The first noticeable downturn in quality is at circa 9:27, for the "When My Dreams Come True" sequence, where things become quite a bit grittier and less clear. That said, close-ups of Mary Eaton still clearly show fine detail like flyaway hair (see screenshot 10). Things revert to the better look of this transfer at around 15:26, but devolve again around 27:19, a ragged section which lasts until around 38:39. By far the worst part of this transfer is later in the film, starting at 49:51, where things are ragged enough that I have to wonder if they might have even been sourced from a blown up 16mm source (see screenshot 5). Detail is negligible here and contrast is wonky enough that facial details more or less disappear in the wide shots. A couple of later moments, including one at around 1:08:01, literally in the middle of the jail scene, and a very late moment at 1:27:10, again show markedly less detail and a much coarser grain field. All of this said, when The Cocoanuts looks good, it looks very good, with solid contrast, appealingly deep black levels and nicely gradated gray scale. As with many early talkies, there aren't a ton of close-ups, and so superb levels of fine detail are rarely if ever on display. The inconsistency of this transfer may cause some to feel a 3.0 score is too generous, while others may feel 3.0 is too low, given the challenges Universal evidently faced in cobbling together a complete version of the film, but I'll further complicate matters by saying my "actual" score is 3.25. The bottom line is those who have suffered through pretty shoddy previous home video releases of this film will probably be pleasantly surprised at the general upgrade in quality here, while those who have never seen The Cocoanuts previously would be well cautioned to set their expectations appropriately.
While not as badly damaged as parts of The Cocoanuts' video presentation is, the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track on this release is the least effective and convincing of the five films in the Marx Brothers set. The first two films were shot on the east coast and have long been seen (heard?) as the shoddiest in terms of overall audio quality, and that apprehension will probably not be significantly changed by this Blu-ray presentation. While mitigated from earlier home video releases, hiss is still more than abundant, and while also attended to by restorative efforts, there are still occasional pops and cracks to be heard. All of this said, dialogue is rendered generally clearly, at least within the boxy, sometimes clipped, confines of early talkie recording technology.
The Cocoanuts preserves one of The Marx Brothers' Broadway triumphs, but it struggles at times to really work as a film, something that its early talkie status probably only exacerbates. The brothers are often hilarious, but the film is a bit more uneven than the later Paramount features. Video is improved from earlier releases but still pretty problematic at times, and audio also isn't able to completely overcome the recording technologies of its era and intervening damage. Still, this is a wonderful, hilarious motion picture, and this new Blu-ray release comes Highly recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
1931
1930
1932
1933
Ich möchte kein Mann sein
1918
1923
1935
Ultimate Edition
1920
1923
1923
1928
1928
Los amantes pasajeros
2013
1916
1917
1916
1916
1917-1923
1917
1927