Episode 290: Duck Soup (1933)

Special Guest: Robert S. Bader, Robert Weide, Joseph Adamson
Guest Co-Host: Rob St. Mary, Jon Cross


Directed by Leo McCarey, Duck Soup (1933) was the last of the four Marx Brothers' run at Paramount. A send-up of politics and warmongering, Duck Soup is an anarchic collection of sight gags, wordplay, and surrealism in which Groucho Marx plays Rufus T. Firefly, the man who will save Freedonia from disaster, despite the efforts of Chicolini (Chico Marx) and Pinky (Harpo Marx), two Sylvanian spies.


Guest this week include Robert S. Bader (author of Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers on Stage), Robert Weide (producer of Marx Brothers in a Nutshell) and Joseph Adamson (author of Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo: A History of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World).


Rob St. Mary and Jon Cross join Mike to discuss Duck Soup and the Marx Brothers.