Room Service might not be the most famous film comedy starring the Marx Brothers, but it's worth a watch. Based on the 1937 play of the same name by Allen Boretz & John Murray. Less frenetic and more physically contained than their other movies, the plot revolves around getting a stage play, Hail and Farewell, to be produced and funded by mysterious backer Zachary Fisk, while evading paying the hotel bill. The Marx Brothers are trying to fund this play. They have assembled the cast and crew of the play in the hotel ballroom, Gordon Miller (Grocho Marx) try to skip out of the hotel without paying before Gregory Wagner (Donald MacBride), the owner of the hotel finds out. MacBride is just as funny as the Marx Brothers as Wagner the efficiency expert, is really the stiff that the Marx Brothers are trying to tear down with their anti-authority hijinks. MacBride tends to shock out his catch phrase throughout the movie, that can be annoying. MacBride and the Marx Brothers work well with each other, as the scenes between them are just funny. Miller doesn't skip yet, after receives word that one of his actresses, Christine Marlowe (Lucille Ball) has arranged for a backer. Lucille Ball doesn't give much to the movie, as she plays second-banana, her comedic side really doesn't show in the film. She fades into the background. I felt that she could have been use more. It seems at the time, she was mostly use for eye-candy. Now Miller and the other Marx Brothers must keep his room, and hide his crew until the meeting with the backer can happen. Problems continue to happen, when the author comes to stay with them. Author, Leo Davis (Frank Albertson) is a Mickey Rooney's Andy Hardy type character, that can be annoying at times, but Miller finds a way to use Davis to keep their room at less for the moment. The movie is an uneven but entertaining blend of traditional stage farce and Marxian madness. There are the same types of humor that you see in other Marx brothers films are in this film just in a limited area, because of that, the room becomes somewhat a character developing area. It's nice to see a movie with little cut scenes and one location. It gives the movie a small time feel, and how importation the place is. William A. Seiter's direction keeps the brothers limited to the area, gives the audience the best performance you ever saw in a hotel bedroom. Nearly the entire movie is filmed within two adjoining hotel rooms. There's no musical number except a few bars of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. That means no Harpo playing the Harp or Chico playing the piano. Still it wasn't needed. There are a number of funny supporting cast that continues to be gags throughout the film. The man from the collection agency, the man representing the financial backer for the play, the Russian want-to-be actor, and the doctor each pop up in one or two scenes to move the plot and supply the set up for a couple gags. Several high quality visual and verbal gags are included. This Marx Brothers film might not live up to Night of the Opera, or Duck Soap, but still it's worth noticing. Watch it.
Review of Room Service
