Duck Soup (1933): I can handle the Marx Brothers in small
doses. But Duck Soup, coming in at
just 68 minutes, was waaaaaaaay too much. In joke-a-second delivery, I feel
like you need to hit as least as much as you miss, and that’s not the case
here. The puns and double-entendres are sometimes amusing, but the volume of
them is tiresome, and a lot of them fall flat. Additional complaints: the plot
is extremely thin (which would be fine, if the other elements played out
favorably), the musical numbers (likely used as filler to pad the short running
time) are unremarkable, and much of the comedy is downright cruel. I’ll have to
revisit some other Marx Brothers films when I have time to explore whether or
not I’m a fan of theirs at all. Perhaps I’ve just outgrown them.
Some Like it Hot (1959): I like Billy Wilder. And I like this film. Given contemporary sensibilities about presentation of gender, Some Like it Hot does pose some problems. But overall, I appreciated that its approach was much like the one later taken by Tootsie: the film sometimes delivers jokes at the expense of women, but it as (or more) frequently uses its conceit to criticize the boorish behavior of men. And it’s funny. Very funny. And it kept me guessing. It’d been long enough since the last time I saw it, that I couldn’t quite remember who ultimately paired off together from the love triangle until well past the halfway point of the film (much like my experience this time around with The Philadelphia Story). Curtis, Lemon, and Monroe work well together. And Billy Wilder, as always, has a great sense of pace. In the end, this isn’t a particularly important film, but it is a pretty fun one. By far my favorite comedy this week.
Some Like it Hot (1959): I like Billy Wilder. And I like this film. Given contemporary sensibilities about presentation of gender, Some Like it Hot does pose some problems. But overall, I appreciated that its approach was much like the one later taken by Tootsie: the film sometimes delivers jokes at the expense of women, but it as (or more) frequently uses its conceit to criticize the boorish behavior of men. And it’s funny. Very funny. And it kept me guessing. It’d been long enough since the last time I saw it, that I couldn’t quite remember who ultimately paired off together from the love triangle until well past the halfway point of the film (much like my experience this time around with The Philadelphia Story). Curtis, Lemon, and Monroe work well together. And Billy Wilder, as always, has a great sense of pace. In the end, this isn’t a particularly important film, but it is a pretty fun one. By far my favorite comedy this week.
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