Fredonia’s relations with neighboring Sylvania are precarious, and Firefly’s psychopathology, whetted by dictatorial power, ensures that he’ll do more to foster an imminent war than to forestall it. In this respect, of course, he’s dangerous, especially when it comes to wielding the threat of war. Like most Groucho Marx characters, Firefly is both a nonstop talker and insulter, but as the would-be dictator of an entire nation, his use of language reveals a pathology of vanity and bullyism. “From all reports,” announces the local newspaper, “the new leader will execute his duties with an iron hand,” and when Firefly finally arrives (late as usual), he launches into a song and dance to proclaim the principles of his administration: Firefly, a statesman of some unaccountable renown who’s foisted on the tiny country of Fredonia in a time of crisis by its one-woman financial sector. We start with Groucho, who is introduced as Rufus T. In particular, they add, “the scoundrels who rule are exposed and expelled, and diplomacy is bared as a battle of vain men and chiselers for personal glory.” Surprising as it may seem, the classic bit of comic business conducted in the famous “mirror scene” illustrated above makes a clever contribution to the film’s caustic psychoanalysis of dictatorial pathology. Touches every discontent of the day, from suspicion of all forms of government and a growing skepticism of war as an instrument of policy to a more hum-drum dissatisfaction with politicians in general and a pervasive fatigue and despair over the miseries of the Depression. Zimmerman and Burt Goldblatt, “the incarnation of lowbrow vaudeville comedy,” but Martin argues that “if we look beneath the outer patina of roughhouse comedy, we see the films are a serious condemnation of American culture.” Even Zimmerman and Goldblatt agree that the “buckshot satire” of Duck Soup, which is probably the Marxes’ best film, Gardner puts it, of “slapstick and obvious gags, puns, pratfalls, and mimicry,” all to underscore and embellish the gleefully cynical proclamation that (to paraphrase one of Groucho’s famous remarks) “Whatever it is, we’re against it!” In the 1930s, the Marx Brothers were, according to Paul D.
When one thinks of the comedy of the Marx Brothers-Groucho, Chico, and Harpo-one thinks of zaniness and anarchy, both in method and message: a barrage, as American Marxian scholar Martin A.
FIGURE R9.22 In Dubious Battle Marx Brothers, Duck Soup Leo McCarey, Paramount, USA, 1933
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