STUFF YOU GOTTA WATCH - A Night in Casablanca

A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA

(1946)
With Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Sig Ruman, Lisette Verea, Fredrick Guitman
Directed by Archie Mayo
Black and White
Reviewed by JL and JB

Nothing like a hot meal After their five-year premature retirement, the Marx Brothers returned to the screen in A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA, mainly because (all together now) Chico needed the money. It was their best film since AT THE CIRCUS, which isn't saying much, but it was probably as good as could be hoped for under the circumstances. An independent production released by United Artists, the film was noticeably lacking in the production values of their Paramount or, especially, MGM films. Long gone also were the days of Kaufmans and Ryskinds and Kalmars and Rubys (although an uncredited Frank Tashlin did contribute a few memorable sight gags to the picture). There was also the matter of director Archie Mayo, who was known as a nice guy during his studio-contract days at Warners and Fox, but who had become a notorious on-set tyrant once he started freelancing in the '40s. He and the brothers locked horns almost daily, with Groucho referring to him as the "fat slob" who was "ruining the picture." Despite such encumbrances, A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA is worthwhile for a handful of memorable scenes, a couple of handfuls of quotable one-liners, and Harpo's most unrestrained performance since the Paramount days. All the brothers, in fact, proved they still had it in them. By the time of their final film (LOVE HAPPY) three years later, it seemed as if they'd aged 20 years. - JL

As mentioned above, one of the things that killed the Marx Brothers was their inability to hire top writers like George Kaufman, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby or S. J. Perelman for their post-A DAY AT THE RACES films. Without the kind of clever, thoughtful and satirical jokes found in ANIMAL CRACKERS, DUCK SOUP or A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, the Marx Brothers were simply another comedy team, just slightly above the Three Stooges or the Ritz Brothers. However, with the Brothers themselves investing in A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA, they approach their second-rate material with an energy not seen since A DAY AT THE RACES, making everything seem funnier than it really is. The Brothers still firmly believed in Irving Thalberg's A NIGHT AT THE OPERA rules, despite its track record of failure, but in A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA the young lovers are so inconsequential you hardly even notice they are there, and aside from Harpo and Chico's mandatory musical specialities, there is only Kalmar and Ruby's oldie but goody "Who's Sorry Now?" to slow things down. Sig Ruman and Lisette Verea play their parts of Nazi villains with just the right sense of fun, helping lift the film above such previous misfires as THE BIG STORE and GO WEST. A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA may not be one of the Brothers' great films, but it is good fun, and by 1946, good fun was the best you could hope for in a Marx Brothers movie. - JB

BEHIND THE SCREEN

"I was terribly depressed at the preview. We had worked so long and hard on this, and thought we had it so solid and tight, and then to see reams of it emasculated by that fat idiot (Mayo), well, it was heart rending... I'm sure it will be better than THE BIG STORE, but it will never be another NIGHT AT THE OPERA."
---- Groucho, in a letter to his daughter Miriam, circa January, 1946 (Love, Groucho by Miriam Marx Allen; Faber and Faber, 1992)