BEFORE: OK, so I've been up and down the cast lists of all of the films left on my list, trying to find that one path through all of the films that maintains actor linking, while also keeps things separated into distinct themes, and I've concluded it doesn't exist. At least not at this point in time. Oh, I can arrange films into blocks of 5 or 10 that might riff on a theme, or a chain of 10 or 15 where all the films are linked by actors, but if I try to go hog wild and link everything together by actor, the themes will be all over the place, and vice versa. In its own way, that's a metaphor for life, you might be at a point in your career or relationship or whatever where you can't really see a year in advance, but you're fairly confident what your life will be like for the next month or so - so I have to just take things as they come for now, plan maybe a month of linked films in advance, then see what develops. After all, new linking possibilites are created every time I add a film to the list, but the flip side of that is that they're also destroyed every time I cross a film off. But maybe - just maybe - I can keep reducing the list while linking a month of films here, or a few weeks worth there, and at some point all of the films left, however many, will all link to each other. That sounds pretty darn near impossible.
In the meantime, the Marx Brothers chain continues, and tonight they're in a hotel - this is a setting that keeps popping up this year, in films like "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "Four Rooms", "Love in the Afternoon" - even Cary Grant spent time in hotels, like in "My Favorite Wife" and "Kiss Them for Me". I never realized how many films are set in hotels. I'll be headed down to Atlantic City this weekend for some R&R, so I'll be relaxing in a hotel myself, and I'll probably skip a film on Monday.
THE PLOT: A penniless theatrical producer must outwit the hotel efficiency expert trying to evict him from his room, while securing a backer for his new play.
AFTER: After just two films I sort of got into the rhythm of the Marx Brothers' films, and then on this third film, the rhythm just wasn't there. This film was based on a screenplay that the brothers didn't write, and it shows. They even forgot to put the Marx Brothers in places where they could play the piano and the harp!
It's no wonder that Buster Keaton was called in to help write "Go West" and "At the Circus" - although he later claimed he didn't do much to help the comedy team out, but at least he helped them get back to what they were good at. This film, therefore, clearly shows the need to return to form, which justified hiring Keaton.
You can tell it was a stage play because 99% of the action takes place in one hotel room - and one setting helps assuage a live audience's discomfort - keep things confined to one room and you can keep the scene changes to a minimum. Here there are so many people in and out of this producer's suite, that it's almost like a bedroom farce without the sex.
Of course, you can also take this as a precursor to "The Producers" - although no one here is trying to make a bad play, they're just bad at putting on a good play, because they have no money. They need a backer to get the show off the ground, and also cover the enormous bill for their hotel, which is housing most of most of the play's cast and crew.
When the backer eventually arrives with the check, he does so at the worst possible time, when the action in the room is at its wildest, and then things just sort of peter out from there. Some films have endings, while others just sort of stop. And considering that means I don't have to watch a fake turkey flying around a hotel room any more, that stopping was welcomed.
Also starring Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Frank Albertson, Cliff Dunstan, Donald McBride, Philip Wood
RATING: 3 out of 10 doses of Ipecac
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