Duck Soup
By Kit Macdonald
The Marx Brothers - Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and, in his final film, Zeppo - star in this pin-sharp black comedy about politics and war which weaves anarchic magic out of slapstick humour, ingenious wordplay and absurdist humour. Groucho plays Rufus T. Firefly, the newly installed president of the fictional country of Freedonia, Zeppo is his secretary, and Chico and Harpo play Chicolini and Pinky, who are spies for the neighbouring country of Sylvania. The two countries end up at war after relations break down between Groucho and Ambassador Trentino of Sylvania, who has been plotting to provoke a revolution in Freedonia so Sylvania can annex it.
Duck Soup received mixed reviews on its release and did modest business at the box office, but has long since been reappraised as a searing and darkly prescient commentary on authoritarianism, carried by a cast whose comic talents have seldom been equalled.