The Marx Brothers Come Back

Girlfriend Ann calls A Night In Casablanca best of all the Marx Brothers, her memory of that CBS stay-up event still vivid from age thirteen. I've not forgotten counting down hours to the same broadcast in 1973. Could she care less about such a runt in the Marxes' litter were it not for deep impression made that night? We ran ANIC recently and still it clicks, being for Ann the only Marx that does (she hit the kill button on A Night At The Opera after a first ten minutes). Would outcome have been the other-way-around given Opera instead of Casablanca that long-ago late night? Seeing films first in happy context of growing up is to view same through rose-tinted glass from there on. I suspended critical judgment on the Brothers' Paramount features for knowing them first via afternoon television and 70's theatre revival. When life is good, movies seem better. Many have written of biggest viewing kicks between their tenth and twentieth years. That's near enough to when I experienced A Night In Casablanca first, coming  for me as it did on cusp of jaded maturity. To have intersected with it even a year later might have put this one on a pass list from there on. Remarkable the effect a single tube run could have in those days when classic comedy on TV was not to be taken for granted.

A Night In Casablanca would be a Marx comeback from so-called retirement. Was the Bros. chucking Hollywood after The Big Store altogether their idea? The latter had been done at reduced cost ($850K) from previous Go West ($1.1 million). Their comedies since A Night At The Opera were money losers. The Big Store realized a minimal profit for getting made cheap, but its domestic rentals came to the team's lowest so far for MGM. Were pink slips issued here, or did the studio propose re-route to lower status for the Marx Brothers? The boys might have hung on in budget comedies like "Whistling" vehicles Red Skelton did, or second features of a sort Laurel and Hardy fell heir to upon arrival at MGM a year or so later. For whatever decline the Marxes experienced, they never sunk to these levels. Further work at Metro might have put them on a bobsled to B's, however. Apprehension of this was as good a reason for quitting as any.

The story has long been that A Night In Casablanca was means of relieving Chico of wager obligations, darker implication that certain quarters had him measured for cement footwear should he not pay up. There had been cash flow to Chico through the 40's if ads shown here are any indication. His traveling orchestra performed dates in theatres, supper clubs ... wherever there was a stage and music was welcome. I'd assume Chico's act was a hit, what with comic possibilities in addition to seasoned instrumentalists. It's said Mel Tormé began his career with the Marx show. Did Chico losing at games of chance outpace income from the road? My preferred guess says the Marxes took A Night In Casablanca because financing was there to make it, something maybe not the case over a past five years when word was surely out that comedies with them weren't selling ...

David Loew was Casablanca's producer. He was son and heir to founding Marcus Loew of that name's empire at picture-making. David hadn't keys to studio gates, but calls from him were answered, and he'd proven adept so far with independent production (So Ends Our Night, The Moon and Sixpence, some Joe E. Browns). Loew would set up a Night In Casablanca company and, together with the Marxes, share expense and revenue, optimism the greater as this was booming wartime and biz was never better. Preparations got underway a year ahead of the film's release. One boost maybe unexpected was Warner Bros. lodging objection to A Night In Casablanca's title. There'd been several variations on that, as the trade ad below illustrates (and note Loew sarcasm directed at WB "Mayors of Casablanca"). As Groucho might have observed, it was a matter of big bullies picking on little bullies, and he'd not let opportunity pass to spin this controversy in the Brothers' favor.

It was serious at first (May 1945). David Loew went to releasing United Artists' legal department in hopes they could arrange arbitration. Warners had put forth a flimsy argument that using Casablanca in the Marx film's title would diminish value of their couple-years-old Bogart hit, still playing off in theatres, according to WB. Here was the very sort of major studio arrogance Groucho thrived on challenging. His open letter, published not only in trades but a mainstream press, made sport of Burbank monitors and neutralized what could otherwise have been a drawn out and costly ordeal. Readers meanwhile enjoyed madcap Groucho humbling one of filmland's behemoths, and therein lay valued publicity for A Night In Casablanca. But a question --- had Groucho composed the missive (and for that matter, other letters credited to him), or did gag assist sweeten text for maximum effect? Just wondering ... if his correspondence was so clever and witty as many published collections confirm it was, why didn't Grouch turn some of that brilliance toward improved Marx Bros. movie scripting?

The team did apply themselves on A Night In Casablanca, at least starting out. As with prior MGM's, there would be a tour for polishing routines to be used in the new film. The schedule hewed to smaller venues and army bases along the Pacific coast, the "hinterlands" as Variety called it, where hopefully there wouldn't be picture-wise folk to cop any of their ideas (or radio gagsters who might glom laughs for quick ether dissipation). A September 1945 start was planned for A Night In Casablanca, with summer lead-up figured for getting five extended set-pieces ready. Each was timing intensive and only repeat performing could get them in camera-ready shape. Live audience reaction would hopefully tip-off what was funny.

It wasn't enough just featuring the Brothers. Their in-person show needed talent to buffer Marx madness and relieve same with song and variety, not unlike formula Metro earlier applied to the team's filmic output. James B. Carson, a rotund, often-mustachioed character comedian (according to multiple Google sources), had long trod burlesque and vaude boards. Was he an old friend to one or more of the Marxes? Also there was John Sheehan, Stanley Price, and a line of girls with the troupe. Sheehan I could find nothing on ... there was a Stanley Price in many westerns, serials, and some short comedies from the twenties into the fifties. Obscure names, but they toured a summer with the Marx Brothers and presumably would have  their stories to tell, had anyone asked.

There were sixty or so performances, each about an hour long. Routines for A Night In Casablanca were pared, pruned, and polished, said Variety. Producer Loew and Casablanca's director Archie Mayo followed the troupe and singled out props they could retain for shooting later. This sort of preparation reflected Marxian hopes that Casablanca would finesse their screen comeback. Even Groucho was optimistic, according to private letters. Archie Mayo later figured eight days trimmed off sound stage time as result of word-perfect honing of complex scenes, citing a Chico-Harpo exchange of about three minutes that ordinarily would have needed a day to complete. Thanks to prepping on the tour, it wrapped within an hour, according to the director.

But Groucho ended up bitter toward his Night In Casablanca director, calling Archie Mayo a "fat idiot" in post-pic correspondence. Letters Groucho penned, so many of which saw later publication, have lots to do with a frankly harsh image attached to him. We assume he didn't write these for other than recipients to read, and there's at least value in having them for unvarnished insight as to Groucho's attitude toward work and those who collaborated with him, but he does come across callous at the least. How many entertainment figures had so much of their private writings revealed? Thanks to accumulation of Groucho's, we have warts and all to reflect upon from most of comedies he made, particularly later ones that proved so unsatisfactory for him.

A Night In Casablanca's big slapstick finale is no highlight, and filming it settled Groucho's resolve to get out of Marx Bros. movies and stay out (other than what amounted to an extended cameo in Love Happy). I don't ascribe to notions the team was "too old" for a 1946 try. It's only the extreme physical stuff that gives pause. Last reel blowouts had been a Marx staple for too long. Their best comedy was never these in any case. What plays well in A Night In Casablanca is verbal and close-quarter mirth to show off timing precision the three hadn't lost. There's a reel given mostly to heavy Sig Rumann trying to pack while unseen Marxes unpack, as pleasing to my estimation as 30's routines more celebrated. An uncredited Frank Tashlin was aboard to supply gags --- was Harpo holding up the wall FT's creation? Casablanca's not so corseted as their MGM vehicles (Marx clowning reflects more enthusiasm), and I'm not surprised a 1946 public went for it. Netflix HD is streaming A Night In Casablanca, so we at least have visual quality approaching what first-run viewers saw, if not a show recognized among the team's best.

That first post-war year saw stars welcomed back not unlike carpets unfurled for those doing first talkies back in the late 20's. The Marx Brothers hadn't worked for five years and maybe we'd missed them, however tired their act had gotten before the conflict. A Night In Casablanca world premiered to triumph at Chicago's Oriental Theatre, luring a biggest crowd since Amos n' Andy played there long before. Chuck Foster's Orchestra and singer Bob Eberly fronted the stage revue (there is an Eberly Tender Love Songs collection available on CD), and 55G's were counted for a first week (only Sinatra live at competing Chicago Theatre did better). A Night In Casablanca went on to collect $2.7 million in world rentals, the biggest return of all Marx Brothers comedies. Distribution by Standard Television beginning in March 1956 put Casablanca in an obscure package with other David Loew properties (and coincidentally, Love Happy). College and revival bookings often paired A Night In Casablanca with Love Happy, the two filling dates for Marx fans who'd long since committed to memory the team's Paramount and MGM pics.