Taken as the final Marx Brothers movie, then Love Happy can't help but disappoint. But the enjoyment contained in this pleasant diversion of a film is perhaps directly proportionate to how you approach it. Really the film, based on a story by Harpo, is a solo Harpo Marx vehicle, and the first one in which his character shares the same moniker as his stage name since Monkey Business.
I've reviewed three Marx Brothers movies on the IMDb over the last decade or so, and in some of them I've been pretty mean about Harpo's character. As a relative Marx Brothers novice (though, as said, I've still been watching them for around a dozen years now) maybe it took me a while to get used to him, or maybe he really is just more likable in this one? Certainly his affectations around women seem more genuinely innocent and charming than the would-be sex pest of the earlier vehicles.
Though this is, of course, the whole point: the Harpo Marx in this film isn't really the uncontrollable force of nature from earlier ventures, but a more passive and selfless man played by an actor now in his sixties. You're no longer watching THE Harpo, but A Harpo. One inconsolable issue I've always had with the character is that the inner beauty he allows us to see during his harp solos isn't reflected in the regular persona. So the sweet and gentle look in Harpo's eyes comes from a different place to the guy causing violent mayhem or female harassment. By the time of Love Happy, both sides of the character finally meet in the middle, as Harpo begins to embrace the kind of naked sentimentality so beloved of Chaplin, particularly towards the end of his career. (And as Harpo ages, he begins to bear more than a passing resemblance to Chaplin, particularly as Charlie played other characters with his own white hair during the 50s).
So, if we can take this film on its own terms, and lower expectations accordingly, it becomes more palatable. Then we factor in that it has a minor role for Chico. The brothers had previously come out of a five- year retirement for A Night In Casablanca (6) reputedly to help clear Chico's gambling debts. Chico doesn't get away with this scott free, as in Casablanca and this movie he's forced to take parts in scenes that involve him gambling. Love Happy even has him losing, with a "There goes my coat". And in an age of product placement, then the mark of the financial backers is even sent up, with Harpo amusingly using most of the advertising billboards during the climax as makeshift fairground rides.
With all this in mind, it's a likable enough movie that features the final film performance of Harpo Marx, with a guest appearance from his brother. Except, by this stage, the financial backers want the obvious and Groucho is also drafted in. Yet Groucho isn't properly integrated into the narrative, and just does introductory monologues/voice-overs and gets to share hardly any screen time with his brothers at all, not even being seen on screen with Chico even though they're supposed to be in the same scene. Even worse, Groucho couldn't make his disinterest any clearer if he'd tried. While he appeared reinvigorated for Casablanca - for my money, better than any film they took part in since A Day At The Races – here he's just there to help out his brothers, a deeply bored man sans greasepaint, more interested in his TV quiz show than this "not really a Marx Brothers" movie.
Certainly even less of a Marx Brothers movie is an endeavour they all did eight years later – Irwin Allen's The Story of Mankind (5), featuring all three brothers playing minor roles in vignettes where they do not meet. A film that looks part epic (thanks to reused stock footage), part cheap episode of Star Trek, it has some amusing moments for a once-again-trying Groucho, a "blink and you'll miss it" secondary part for Chico and two minutes of Harpo as Isaac Newton. The only time they were shot in colour – in this case the lovably dated and garish Technicolor – you finally get to see them in their splendour, although Groucho once again appears without his make-up, and all three are pushing seventy. It's by no means a great film, and by no means a Marx Brothers movie, though it's probably better than its reputation, even if only by default.
So for the final three Marx Brothers pictures after their return from retirement, we're left with the unsettling prospect that only one of them can genuinely be regarded as a Marx Brothers movie. Love Happy, then. It's a terrible Marx Brothers movie. But as a movie in its own right, it's really quite charming.
I've reviewed three Marx Brothers movies on the IMDb over the last decade or so, and in some of them I've been pretty mean about Harpo's character. As a relative Marx Brothers novice (though, as said, I've still been watching them for around a dozen years now) maybe it took me a while to get used to him, or maybe he really is just more likable in this one? Certainly his affectations around women seem more genuinely innocent and charming than the would-be sex pest of the earlier vehicles.
Though this is, of course, the whole point: the Harpo Marx in this film isn't really the uncontrollable force of nature from earlier ventures, but a more passive and selfless man played by an actor now in his sixties. You're no longer watching THE Harpo, but A Harpo. One inconsolable issue I've always had with the character is that the inner beauty he allows us to see during his harp solos isn't reflected in the regular persona. So the sweet and gentle look in Harpo's eyes comes from a different place to the guy causing violent mayhem or female harassment. By the time of Love Happy, both sides of the character finally meet in the middle, as Harpo begins to embrace the kind of naked sentimentality so beloved of Chaplin, particularly towards the end of his career. (And as Harpo ages, he begins to bear more than a passing resemblance to Chaplin, particularly as Charlie played other characters with his own white hair during the 50s).
So, if we can take this film on its own terms, and lower expectations accordingly, it becomes more palatable. Then we factor in that it has a minor role for Chico. The brothers had previously come out of a five- year retirement for A Night In Casablanca (6) reputedly to help clear Chico's gambling debts. Chico doesn't get away with this scott free, as in Casablanca and this movie he's forced to take parts in scenes that involve him gambling. Love Happy even has him losing, with a "There goes my coat". And in an age of product placement, then the mark of the financial backers is even sent up, with Harpo amusingly using most of the advertising billboards during the climax as makeshift fairground rides.
With all this in mind, it's a likable enough movie that features the final film performance of Harpo Marx, with a guest appearance from his brother. Except, by this stage, the financial backers want the obvious and Groucho is also drafted in. Yet Groucho isn't properly integrated into the narrative, and just does introductory monologues/voice-overs and gets to share hardly any screen time with his brothers at all, not even being seen on screen with Chico even though they're supposed to be in the same scene. Even worse, Groucho couldn't make his disinterest any clearer if he'd tried. While he appeared reinvigorated for Casablanca - for my money, better than any film they took part in since A Day At The Races – here he's just there to help out his brothers, a deeply bored man sans greasepaint, more interested in his TV quiz show than this "not really a Marx Brothers" movie.
Certainly even less of a Marx Brothers movie is an endeavour they all did eight years later – Irwin Allen's The Story of Mankind (5), featuring all three brothers playing minor roles in vignettes where they do not meet. A film that looks part epic (thanks to reused stock footage), part cheap episode of Star Trek, it has some amusing moments for a once-again-trying Groucho, a "blink and you'll miss it" secondary part for Chico and two minutes of Harpo as Isaac Newton. The only time they were shot in colour – in this case the lovably dated and garish Technicolor – you finally get to see them in their splendour, although Groucho once again appears without his make-up, and all three are pushing seventy. It's by no means a great film, and by no means a Marx Brothers movie, though it's probably better than its reputation, even if only by default.
So for the final three Marx Brothers pictures after their return from retirement, we're left with the unsettling prospect that only one of them can genuinely be regarded as a Marx Brothers movie. Love Happy, then. It's a terrible Marx Brothers movie. But as a movie in its own right, it's really quite charming.