Product Description

Celebrate the 75th anniversary of the greatest comedy act in history with The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection. This essential DVD set features the legendary four Marx Brothers in five of their most acclaimed and best loved films - Duck Soup, Horse Feathers, Monkey Business, Animal Crackers and The Cocoanuts - the only five movies ever made with all four brothers together: Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1729 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Released on: 2004-11-09
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Black & White, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Running time: 403 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
There will be a debate of which 2004 DVD collection of Marx Brothers films was better. This Universal release of the better known Paramount-produced films are the only ones starring all four brothers: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. The Warner collection contains less-vital films, but is loaded with extras and commentaries. The Universal collection contains only 20 minutes of interviews from NBC's Today Show--interesting but short--with Harpo, Groucho, and Harpo's son Bill from the '60s and '70s. All of the films in this collection were released on DVD by Image Entertainment in 2000 and the prints look the same, which isn't necessarily bad; one just wishes a major restoration had been undertaken.

The films--packaged handsomely with a booklet--are essential Marx Brothers, their first five films made from 1929 to 1933. The least timeless is their first, The Cocoanuts, based on their Broadway hit. The film--one of the first full talkies--takes place in a hotel with owner Groucho out to grab every dollar. Animal Crackers is the brothers' first classic, a lickety-split comedy about an art theft being investigated by Groucho's alter-image, Captain Spaulding. For introducing youngsters to the work of Marx, Monkey Business is the best way. The shenanigans start right at the start as the brothers stowaway on a luxury liner. It's their first film that wasn't based on a play, as they endeavored to find new material. Horse Feathers gave them more fertile ground plus a sure-fire Hollywood director at the helm (Norman McLeoad). Their fantasia of college life includes the riotous football-game finale. Music, always a key part of their plays and films is given more weight here and includes Groucho's theme, "I'm Against It." Music is again key as the musicals of the era are spoofed in the brothers' undisputed masterpiece, Duck Soup. From a land called Fredonia, Groucho plays a slapdash ruler who rewrites the rules of governing, leading to a most memorable war with Sylvania (so war gets lampooned. too). Duck Soup also boasts the most famous Marx brothers sketch: Groucho trying to fool his mirror. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Classic Marx Brothers not classy presentation
The Marx Brothers hit their peak with "Duck Soup". Sure, "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races" were both bigger box office hits and, while both those latter films have their moments they just can't quite compete with the inspired anarchy of "Duck Soup". Let's start with the positives first. It doesn't look like most of the films have any footage missing as near as I can tell. Sure, some of the editing still looks ragged but most of their early films (and films from that era for that matter) have that "look". The first three movies are a bit static looking (since the first two were based on their stage plays that's not a surprise--they look like photographed stage plays). With "Monkey Business" and "Horse Feathers" The Marx Brothers began to develop a style that was a bit more cinematic. All five films are essential for fans.

Now the bad news. Universal has been slapping together boxed sets lately of older films and TV series with little to no extras and without any effort at restoration. They're where Warner Brothers was about 6 years ago. The prints often don't look as sharp as they could and there's plenty of analog blemishes to muddy up the picture as well. Digitally many of these flaws could easily be corrected on these prints. Since the original negatives are long gone (they were shot on nitrate stock. Nitrate stock is quite unstable begins to disintegrate and shrink after a couple of decades). Unfortunately, we're left with prints that are several generations removed from the original negatives which means that these will probably never look perfect. Could they look better? Absolutely as there's been minimal effort to clean them up and none of them look as if there has been an effort to restore them. "Horse Feathers" still appears to be missing some material (unfortunately most of it is probably permanently lost)that probably could have been restored from foreign prints.

The extras are a bit skimpy at best. We get some older "The Today Show" interviews. There's no documentary on The Marx Brothers career, the challenges they faced in reaching an audience and why, ultimately, MGM put them under contract only to dilute their best qualities. I'm also disappointed that there's no audio commentary. Surely former UCLA Professor Howard Suber would have been available to do a commentary on these terrific films? What about vintage newsreels discussing the previews of their movies?

While I appreciate the book, the introductory essay is skimpy. The quotes of Groucho from various films and images from the films/posters was a bright idea it's just that Universal didn't go far enough. A nice short documentary incorporating the interviews included here would have been nice. I appreciate the idea of the book but I also wish that it could be removed from as it is a bit cumbersome in the middle of the accordian style set. Still, the design of the set is quite nice.

I give the films 5 stars for the quality of these classics but 2 stars for the inferior presentation from Universal. It's a pity as Warner has most of the lesser Marx movies but did a marvelous job of restoring them and adding extras including commentaries to them. Considering that Universal has a great restoration department and that they've done a marvelous job of restoring Hitchcock's classic films "Rear Window" and "Vertigo", I'm really disappointed that more effort wasn't made here. It's an example of Hollywood not valuing its past.

No Restoration, Weak Extras, but ***** Movies!
If you already own the previous DVD or Laserdisc releases of these great classic movies, you may want to think twice about investing more money for only 15 minutes total of "Today Show" interviews with Harpo, Groucho, and Harpo's son promoting their books. There is some fun here, but you want to kick the Today Show Director when they interrupt Groucho's story, after only 5 minutes, because they have other things to get to. Groucho really looks stunned and put out that he was stopped.

There are also 3 trailers (Cocoanuts & Monkey Business have none) strangely tagged at the end to promote the MCA 1980's Home Video Tape release.

I guess Universal forgot that they own the rights to the Marx Brothers half-hour 1950's TV special "THE INCREDIBLE JEWEL ROBBERY". This would have been a great addition to the box set! I have never seen this except for the old Castle Films home movie clip.

Restoration? Well, Universal never used that word in their description, and they certainly didn't do it.
The choppy splices are still there in several movies.
The missing footage is still NOT there.
Some reels are still out of focus.
Some reels are still many generations away from the original negative and look very contrasty.
Some reels still have a bouncy picture (warped negative).
About 75% of the time the films do look good.

This really looks like a quick patch-together box set by Universal (Owned by NBC, that is why their Today Show clips are used) to keep up with the competition (WB's DVD Box Set).

BUT, if you never got the previously released DVDs or Laserdiscs, then this is a Must-Get box set!

Stars are for the movies, with no help from Universal
In summary, I will echo what's been said already about this collection. The films are worth having, because after 70+ years of existence, this is apparently the best Universal will do with the classic Marx Brothers performances of their day.

Now I will heap on some gripes of my own. First, there's just over six hours of material spread over six DVDs. You do the math--they're obviously NOT TRYING VERY HARD here. They could have easily fit this all on 3 discs, or fewer. It's not like there's a COMMENTARY TRACK or even a RESTORED PRINT that would make each film worthy of its own disc. Universal did the BARE MINIMUM knowing that real fans would buy these crappy prints anyway, and will pay again if they release restored and augmented versions later. (The Warner Collection beats this one hands down, but with different titles. Hell, even Universal's treatment of ABBOTT & COSTELLO was done better.)

The "exclusive book" is fluff; it has credits and pictures but NOTHING you can't get elsewhere (like IMDB). And the "extras" disc is pitiful. The Today Show interviews of Harpo and Groucho are so brief, and in need of restoration themselves, they're actually cruel to watch. C'mon Universal, this is the BEST STUFF you could find? It's not like you were limited to supplemental material from the 1930s. These interviews are from the '60s and '70s!

The only thing that remotely redeems this collection is the price--the Amazon price, not the retail price. Buy this for the movies if you love them, but this is a collection that ONLY MINNIE (the Marx Brothers' mother) should love.