THE COCOANUTS - The Marx Brothers' Debut

For it is only the fact that the Marx Brothers are in this film that save it at all. Despite what Marx scholar Joe Adamson says about it, I find this film to be very funny when the Marx Brothers are around (and I even find it funny when they aren't, but that's another story.) Even though Groucho's delivery is sometimes halting, he still gives enough to make the jokes funny. With a script by George Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, and much of the dialogue "written" by the Marxes themselves, the comedy routines are quite good, if not always up to par with some of their later classics. The most famous, known as "Why a Duck?", is actually not one of their better ones, and I am always stumped as to why this particular routine has become so well know, when almost any scene in MONKEY BUSINESS (1931) or HORSE FEATHERS (1932) is funnier. Still, at its best, the silliness of THE COCOANUTS is highly contagious. Typical is the moment when Chico sits down at the piano and Margaret Dumont asks him what the first number is. "Number One!" he exclaims proudly.

It should be said that this is the first film the inimitable Margaret Dumont did with the Brothers, and she is an excellent foil as always, though much stiffer and stuffier than she would be later on. In later films, she occasionally enjoys Groucho's jokes - in THE COCOANUTS, she is continually flustered and confused throughout. For Zeppo fans (and you know who you are), his role consists mainly of not being on screen, and he does it very well.

THE COCOANUTS, on any level, remains a historically intriguing artifact from a time when talkies were brand new and the idea of adapting a full scale Broadway musical was still relatively untested. Its entertainment value, though, rests completely on five things - the four Marx Brothers, and your tolerance for a little ditty called "When My Dreams Come True". The Marxes were to do significantly better with their next film made in Astoria, the classic ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930). (See my next article.)

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