| Go West | |
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Theatrical release poster. |
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| Directed by | Edward Buzzell |
| Produced by | Jack Cummings |
| Written by | Irving Brecher |
| Starring | Groucho Marx Harpo Marx Chico Marx John Carroll Diana Lewis |
| Music by | George Bassman (orchestrations) Georgie Stoll (music direction) |
| Cinematography | Leonard Smith |
| Editing by | Blanche Sewell |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | December 6, 1940 |
| Running time | 80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Go West (a.k.a. The Marx Brothers Go West) is the 10th Marx Brothers comedy film, in which brothers Groucho, Chico, and Harpo head to the American West and attempt to unite a couple by ensuring that an evil railroad baron is thwarted. The scene is set in Dead Man's Gulch. Groucho is "S. Quentin Quale", Chico is "Joe Panello" and Harpo is "Rusty Panello". It was directed by Edward Buzzell and written by Irving Brecher, who receives the original screenplay credit.
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Confidence man S. Quentin Quale (Groucho) heads west to find his fortune. En route, he meets the crafty but simple brothers Joseph (Chico) and Rusty Panello (Harpo) in a train station, where they manage to steal his money. Quale soon learns the Panello are heading west as well as they been told one can just pick the gold off the ground. Once there, they befriend an old miner named Dan Wilson (Tully Marshall) whose property, Dead Man's Gulch, has no gold. They loan him their last ten dollars so he can go start life anew, and for collateral, he gives them the deed to the Gulch. Unbeknownst to Wilson, the son of his longtime rival, Terry Turner (John Carroll) has contacted the railway to arrange for them to build through the land, making the old man rich and hopefully resolving the feud.
In their obligatory first meeting scene the Marx Brothers perform the classic "That's a Ten-Spot ($10)" routine, in which Groucho is fleeced by his dimmer siblings. Some surprisingly risque lines for an MGM production make it through to the screen. For instance, Chico exclaims, "Ten dollars you want for that old beaver?" "I'm not in business for love, you know. I was in love once and I got the business", deadpans Groucho. As Harpo is picking his pocket, Groucho complains to the camera, "There's something corrupt going on around my pants...and I just can't seem to locate it."
There is a confrontation between Harpo and "Red" Baxter (Robert Barratt), in classic Western style, as they stride together in the saloon. The patrons laugh when Harpo draws a whisk broom instead of a pistol—but he nearly takes Baxter's head off when the broom fires. In the process of recovering a stolen deed, Groucho and Chico are plied with liquor by the statuesque, deep-voiced Lulubelle (June MacCloy) and her sisters. The tipsy Groucho sings (to the tune of Oh! Susanna) "Oh, I come from Alabama with a bottle on my hip/If I drink six more mint juleps I sure am gonna slip!"
Go West also contains amazing stunts on a moving steam train when the brothers try to separate the carriages and leave the bad guys stranded behind them. This progresses to a stage when they want to stop the train. They tie up the engineer, and Chico asks him how to stop the train; he says "Brake! The brake!" The literal-minded Harpo, naturally, destroys the brake. Deciding instead to extinguish the fire, one of them goes with a bucket to draw water from a barrel. The viewers can see the other side of the barrel is labelled "kerosene." Once this is thrown on the fire with dramatic results Groucho says, "If that's water I'm glad I never touch the stuff." The Marxes then decide to go faster and end up off the tracks for a while and ramming into a house and farm. Then Harpo begins to tear apart the wooden carriages and using it to build up the fire. At one point, Groucho faces the camera and quips, pointing at the bandanna over the engineer's mouth, "This is the best gag in the picture!"
The brothers win the race, but when the train stops, the entire framework has been gutted out and used as firewood. Harpo is honored by being selected to drive the golden spike à la Leland Stanford, but on his backswing with the sledgehammer he drives a railroad executive into the ground instead.
Other typical Groucho highlights include: getting bounced down a flight of stairs; a table dance to a jazz violin in the finale of the torch song; a vocal accompaniment to "Ridin' the Range;" and uttering the line, "Time wounds all heels."
Like other Marx Brothers films, Go West has several musical numbers, including "As If I Didn't Know" and "You Can't Argue With Love" both by Bronislau Kaper and Gus Kahn, "Ridin' The Range" by Roger Edens and Gus Kahn, "From The Land Of The Sky-Blue Water" by Charles Wakefield Cadman and "The Woodpecker Song" by Harold Adamson and Eldo di Lazzaro. (In this song, Chico, playing the piano, takes an orange from Harpo's lunch bag and rolls it on the keys in sync with the melody.)
Groucho was aged 50 during the filming of Go West, and his hairline had begun receding. As such, he took to wearing a toupee throughout the film, as he did the previous film, At the Circus.
A poster for the film appears on the right hand side of the album art for Elton John's album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player.
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