A Day at the Races (film)
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| A Day at the Races | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster. |
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| Directed by | Sam Wood |
| Starring | Groucho Marx Harpo Marx Chico Marx Allan Jones Maureen O'Sullivan |
| Distributed by | MGM |
| Release date(s) | June 11, 1937 |
| Running time | 111 min |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
A Day at the Races (1937) is the seventh movie starring the three Marx Brothers, with Margaret Dumont, Allan Jones and Maureen O'Sullivan. Like their previous MGM feature, A Night at the Opera, this film was a major hit.
The plot revolves around Hugo Z. Hackenbush (Groucho), who is a veterinarian illegally employed as the medical director of Standish Sanitarium owned by Judy Standish (O'Sullivan). Among other things they have to do to save the sanitarium from developers is to keep Mrs. Upjohn (Dumont) as a patient. She, of course, insists on being treated only by Dr. Hackenbush. To try to expose Groucho as a fraud, the bad guys call in Dr. Steinberg, who is played by Siegfried Rumann (also known as Sig Ruman), who was also Groucho's nemesis in A Night at the Opera and A Night in Casablanca. Exterior sequences were filmed at Santa Anita Park.
Often considered one of the funniest scenes in the movie, Chico gives Groucho a tip on a horse, but in code, so that Groucho has to buy book after book from Chico to decipher the code (see image).
In another scene, Chico and Harpo try to keep Groucho away from the femme fatale by wallpapering right over everything. The bucket on Harpo's head is holding the paste.
Some of the songs in the movie by Bronislaw Kaper, Walter Jurmann, and Gus Kahn include "Tomorrow Is Another Day,"and "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm" (which also featured Ivie Anderson and other members of Duke Ellington's orchestra). Two additional songs were filmed but cut. The first, Dr. Hackenbush, was sung by Groucho about what a great doctor he is ("No matter what I treat them for they die from something else"). The other, A Message From The Man In The Moon, is missing from the main part of the film but shows up in the titles and is "reprised" by Groucho for the big, happy ending. The DVD release includes a recently rediscovered audio recording of the song, performed by Allan Jones.
The film also features one of the most influential lindy hop dance sequences ever filmed, danced to the "All God's Chillum Got Rhythm" number and featuring the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, including Frankie Manning. The scene has no clear association with the larger narrative film so as to simplify editing the scene from the film for release in the southern American states under racist censorship laws.
Although well received, many fans consider this motion picture the beginning of the Brothers' decline in film. Part of the reason they believe this is that the film's producer, and the Brothers' leading advocate at MGM, Irving Thalberg, died in mid-production and thus the studio executive who best understood the Brothers' humor was gone.
Contents |
[edit] Musical numbers
- "Tomorrow Is Another Day"
- "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm"
- "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen"
- "A Message from the Man in the Moon"
- "Cosi Cosa" (instrumental version at the race track)
[edit] Trivia
- This was at least the second Marx film to employ a variation on the old Spiritual "All God's Chillun Got Wings", the other being in Duck Soup.
- Keeping in style with their album A Night at the Opera, the British rock group Queen paid homage to this film by naming one of their most famous albums after it (see A Day at the Races).
[edit] Quote
- Groucho takes a patient's pulse. The scene is silent for several seconds as Groucho holds the patient's wrist and stares at his watch. Employing logic that would make Gracie Allen proud, Groucho then says, "Either he's dead or my watch has stopped."
[edit] External links
| The Marx Brothers |
|---|
| Chico Marx | Harpo Marx | Groucho Marx | Gummo Marx | Zeppo Marx |
| Films with Chico, Harpo, Groucho, and Zeppo |
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Humor Risk (1921) • The Cocoanuts (1929) • Animal Crackers (1930) • |
| Films with Chico, Harpo, and Groucho |
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A Night at the Opera (1935) • A Day at the Races (1937) • Room Service (1938) • At the Circus (1939) • |
