Yes, I find some of the humor in Duck Soup dated. It's unavoidable; the film was made in 1933. But at the same time, a lot of the humor is either so wacky or so weird that you can't help but to laugh. And the subject matter of this particular film will never go out of style.
Groucho Marx plays Rufus T. Firefly, the new leader of a country called Freedonia. He is appointed leader because the financial benefactor (Margaret Dumont) believes that he'll do a much better job of handling the country's affairs. Little do Freedonia's supporters suspect that a plot is underway to undermine the country's supposed autonomy, in the form of the ambassador to neighboring Sylvania. The ambassador attempts to find out dirt on Rufus (through two utterly incompetent spies -- Chico and Harpo), while pretending to be a nice, respectable fellow in the presence of Dumont's and Groucho's characters. Firefly's (or is that Groucho's?) natural contempt for the rest of the human race, however, results in a row between him and the ambassador, and war is declared.
That's the entire plot in a nutshell. There's not much to the story, but it doesn't matter, since a Marx Brothers movie is all -- and I mean all 100% -- about the comedy. It disregards all sense, just for laughs. You cannot take a second of this film seriously, which, I suppose, is a good thing. Most films, even comedies of the wacky kind, want us to take certain plot points seriously, as if we'd never accept a comedy that is merely crazy. Duck Soup doesn't make that mistake, although I believe that some viewers from my generation may watch this film and consider this lack of a mistake as a lack of skill. These viewers will say that the movie doesn't make any sense; that the characters and the situations aren't very well developed, and that there isn't any way for us to really feel for anyone or anything here, as if we are supposed to be swept away in some sort of war-based melodrama.
