131-401: Thomas Leo McCarey (October 3, 1898 – July 5, 1969) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was involved in nearly 200 films, including the critically acclaimed Duck Soup , Make Way for Tomorrow , The Awful Truth , Going My Way , The Bells of St. Mary's , My Son John and An Affair to Remember . While focusing mainly on screwball comedies during
262-634: A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance. At first, the decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that triggered economic downturns in most other countries due to a decline in trade, capital movement, and global business confidence. Then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. For example,
393-440: A radio show written by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman ; there was even, at one time, talk of casting the two as their radio characters for the new film, an idea that was eventually used by Perrin in the 1941 Marx Brothers film The Big Store . By October 4, 1932, Arthur Sheekman, Harry Ruby , and Bert Kalmar began writing the screenplay for the next Paramount film, which was now called Firecrackers . Herman Mankiewicz
524-426: A screwball comedy that launched Cary Grant's unique screen persona, largely concocted by McCarey (Grant copied many of McCarey's mannerisms). Along with the similarity in their names, McCarey and Cary Grant shared a physical resemblance, making mimicking McCarey's intonations and expressions even easier for Grant. As writer/director Peter Bogdanovich notes, "After The Awful Truth , when it came to light comedy, there
655-418: A silver standard , almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries . This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around
786-552: A Best Actor Oscar. McCarey's share in the profits from this smash hit gave him the highest reported income in the U.S. for 1944, and its follow-up, The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), which paired Crosby with Ingrid Bergman and was made by McCarey's newly formed production company, was similarly successful. According to Paul Harrill in Great Directors , McCarey acknowledged that the film is largely based on his aunt, Sister Mary Benedict, who died of typhoid. McCarey testified as
917-425: A British palace guard uniform, a Boy Scout Scoutmaster's uniform, and even a Davy Crockett coonskin cap. Meanwhile, the exterior view of the building they are occupying changes appearance from a bunker to an old fort, etc. One of Firefly's generals assures him that he has "a man combing the countryside for volunteers." Sure enough, Pinky is wandering out on the front lines wearing a sandwich board sign reading, "Join
1048-621: A code and two pairs o' plans! The street vendor confrontations are also well-crafted pieces of physical comedy : Chico and Harpo harass a lemonade seller (comedy film veteran Edgar Kennedy ), egged on by his irritation that they have stolen his pitch. First, there is a scene involving the knocking off, dropping, picking up and exchanging of hats. Later, Kennedy (a much larger man) steals bags of Harpo's peanuts, and Harpo responds by burning Kennedy's new straw boater hat; in return, Kennedy pushes over their peanut wagon. Harpo responds by stepping knee-deep into Kennedy's lemonade tank, where he imitates
1179-604: A former privately run bank, bearing no relation to the U.S. government (not to be confused with the Federal Reserve ). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $ 550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass. In an initial response to
1310-590: A friendly witness early on in the hearings of the Un-American Activities Committee which was investigating Communist activity in Hollywood. The public reacted negatively to some of his films after World War II . For instance, his anti-communist film My Son John (1952) failed at the box office. But five years later, he co-wrote, produced, and directed An Affair to Remember . The film, starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr ,
1441-467: A greater reduction in credit. On 5 April 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates , coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to
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#17327878422481572-444: A hobby on the side trying to write popular songs. While at Roach, McCarey, according to later interviews, cast Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy together and guided development of their onscreen characters, thus creating one of the most enduring comedy teams of all time. He only officially appeared as director of the duo's shorts We Faw Down (1928), Liberty (1929) and Wrong Again (1929), but wrote many screenplays and supervised
1703-519: A kind of follow up to The Awful Truth with the same two stars, so it was turned over to Garson Kanin though McCarey worked on some of the editing. McCarey was a devout Roman Catholic and was deeply concerned with social issues. During the 1940s, his work became more serious and his politics more conservative. In 1944 he directed Going My Way , a story about an enterprising priest, the youthful Father Chuck O'Malley, played by Bing Crosby , for which he won his second Best Director Oscar and Crosby won
1834-733: A mirror. This scene has been imitated many times; for instance, in the Bugs Bunny cartoon Hare Tonic , the Mickey Mouse cartoon Lonesome Ghosts , The Square Peg (1959), The Pink Panther (1963), the Tom and Jerry cartoon Cat and Dupli-cat (1967), Big Business (1988), the X-Files episode "Dreamland" (1998), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006) and the Family Guy episode " Road to Germany ". Harpo himself did
1965-600: A modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside
2096-402: A monetary contraction first-hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism , countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and
2227-446: A reprise of this scene, dressed in his usual costume, with Lucille Ball also donning the fright wig and trench coat, in the I Love Lucy episode "Lucy and Harpo Marx". The climactic production number ridicules war by comparing nationalism to a minstrel show . One segment is a variant on the old Negro spiritual " All God's Chillun Got Wings ": They got guns, We got guns, All God's chillun got guns! I'm gonna walk all over
2358-542: A series of violent mishaps. Firefly, Chicolini, Pinky, Roland, and Teasdale take refuge in Teasdale's hideout, which is soon overrun by Sylvanian troops accompanied by Trentino. When the Freedonians recognize him, they pin him in a makeshift pillory and throw fruit at him. Trentino surrenders, but Firefly tells him that he will stay in the pillory "till the fruit runs out". When Mrs. Teasdale victoriously begins singing
2489-567: A serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants. In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In
2620-480: A small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard , and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. In most countries of
2751-493: A sports club. McCarey initially wrote gags for the Our Gang series and other studio stars, then produced and directed shorts, including two-reelers with Charley Chase . Chase would in fact become McCarey's mentor. Upon the comedian's death in 1940, McCarey was quoted as saying, "Whatever success I have had or may have, I owe to his help because he taught me all I know." The two men were especially compatible, as they both enjoyed
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#17327878422482882-713: A standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to
3013-522: A stereotypical Italian grape-crushing peasant; this drives off Kennedy's waiting line of customers. Just before the Mirror Scene is the Radio Scene. Harpo tries the combination to the safe on a box which proves to be a radio, and it starts blaring the break-up strain of John Philip Sousa's " Stars and Stripes Forever ". The music continues despite frantic efforts to silence, and finally destroy,
3144-658: Is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort . If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter. Modern mainstream economists see the reasons in Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies ( Irving Fisher 's debt deflation). The monetarist explanation
3275-592: Is also used several times. "When The Clock On The Wall Strikes 10", the first musical number in the film, is part of the same scene as "Just Wait 'Til I Get Through With It", Groucho's song about the laws of his administration. "This Country's Going To War" is the final musical ensemble in the film. Technically it is the only musical number in the Marx Brothers' films to feature all four of the brothers. However, in Monkey Business , Chico briefly bangs on
3406-404: Is anything more than innocent fluff." Fellow film critic Roger Ebert believed, "The Marx Brothers created a body of work in which individual films are like slices from the whole, but Duck Soup is probably the best." British film critic Barry Norman considered Duck Soup the Marx Brothers' best work, and included it in his list of the 100 best films of the 20th century. Revived interest in
3537-409: Is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: The Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty; drastic reductions in liquidity , industrial production, and trade; and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in
3668-761: Is scheming to provoke a revolution in Freedonia in order to annex it. He sends two spies, Chicolini and Pinky, to Freedonia to find out information about Firefly. To his disappointment, Chicolini and Pinky end up spying on the wrong man, but he agrees to give them another chance. To collect information on Firefly, Chicolini and Pinky pose as peanut vendors and station their food cart outside of Firefly's office. Firefly hires Chicolini as Freedonia's Secretary of War. A short time later, Firefly's secretary, Bob Roland, warns Firefly of this scheme. Roland advises Firefly to insult Trentino, hoping that he will slap Firefly in response; this would give Firefly an excuse to ban Trentino from
3799-660: Is similar to those in Animal Crackers and Horse Feathers , but it did not become closely associated with him as did " Hooray for Captain Spaulding " from Animal Crackers . Zeppo, playing according to James Agee "a peerlessly cheesy improvement on the traditional straight man", sings with the group, including soloing the first few lines of the first song, "When the Clock on the Wall Strikes 10". He also sings with
3930-493: Is supported by the contrast in how the crisis progressed in, e.g., Britain, Argentina and Brazil, all of which devalued their currencies early and returned to normal patterns of growth relatively rapidly and countries which stuck to the gold standard , such as France or Belgium. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated
4061-603: Is the best known instance, the concept of the mirror scene did not originate in this film. Harold Lloyd used essentially the same routine in his short The Marathon (1919). Max Linder included it in Seven Years Bad Luck (1921), where a man's servants have accidentally broken a mirror and attempt to hide the fact by imitating his actions in the mirror's frame. Charlie Chaplin used a similar joke in The Floorwalker (1916), though it did not involve
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4192-663: Is used several times in the film—at least twice by Trentino and once by Firefly —and was repeated by Groucho in A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races . Variations of this phrase later became a frequently used catch-phrase for Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny in Warner Bros. cartoons. In another scene, the film pokes fun at the Hays Code . Due to the code, a man and woman could not be shown in bed together. The camera begins
4323-539: The 1932 election , Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt , who from 1933 pursued a series of " New Deal " policies and programs to provide relief and create jobs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps , Federal Emergency Relief Administration , Tennessee Valley Authority , and Works Progress Administration . Historians disagree on the effects of the New Deal, with some claiming that
4454-802: The Charles Feldman Library at the American Film Institute in Beverly Hills. Duck Soup (1933 film) Duck Soup is a 1933 American pre-Code musical black comedy film written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin ) and directed by Leo McCarey . Released by Paramount Pictures on November 17, 1933, it stars the four Marx Brothers ( Groucho , Harpo , Chico , and Zeppo in his final film appearance) and also features Margaret Dumont , Louis Calhern , Raquel Torres and Edgar Kennedy . Duck Soup
4585-582: The New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of
4716-836: The United States , the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. The Depression was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the " Roaring Twenties ". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation , such as on the stock market , which resulted in growing wealth inequality . Banks were subject to minimal regulation under laissez-faire economic policies, resulting in loose lending and widespread debt. By 1929, declining spending had led to reductions in manufacturing output and rising unemployment . Share values continued to rise until
4847-539: The coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933. The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse,
4978-483: The "mirror scene", Pinky, dressed as Firefly, pretends to be Firefly's reflection in a missing mirror, matching his every move—including absurd ones that begin out of sight—to near perfection. At one point, the two men swap positions, introducing the question of which is the reflection. Eventually, Chicolini, also disguised as Firefly, enters the frame and collides with both of them. Although its appearance in Duck Soup
5109-478: The 1930s, McCarey turned towards producing more socially conscious and overtly religious films during the 1940s, ultimately finding success and acclaim in both genres. McCarey was one of the most popular and established comedy directors of the pre-World War II era. Born in Los Angeles, California , McCarey attended St. Joseph's Catholic School and Los Angeles High School. His father was Thomas J. McCarey , whom
5240-447: The 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It
5371-499: The 29th greatest comedy film of all time. On Rotten Tomatoes , the film has a 91% rating based on 55 reviews, with an average rating of 9.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Fueled by inspired silliness and blessed with some of the Marx brothers' most brilliant work, Duck Soup is one of its – or any – era's finest comedies". It is also one of the earliest films to appear on Roger Ebert 's list of The Great Movies . The film
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5502-635: The Army and see the Navy." Later, Chicolini volunteers Pinky to carry a message through enemy lines; Firefly tells him, "[...] and remember, while you're out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are." Thomas Doherty has described this line as "sum[ming] up the Great War cynicism towards all things patriotic". The melodramatic exclamation "This means war!" certainly did not originate with Duck Soup , but it
5633-813: The British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition " National Government ". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with
5764-692: The Brothers would make a new comedy for Paramount, called Duck Soup . Leo McCarey was set for direction of the film. Three days later The New York Sun reported that Duck Soup would start filming in June. Duck Soup ' s script was completed by July 11. The script was a continuation of Ruby and Kalmar's Firecrackers / Cracked Ice drafts, but contained more elements. Many of the film's clever gags and routines were lifted from Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel , giving Perrin and Sheekman an "additional dialogue" credit. Director McCarey reportedly came up with
5895-422: The Brothers' natural receding-hairline patterns were similar, but Harpo and Chico covered theirs with wigs (Groucho later sported an obvious toupee in the films At The Circus and Go West ). Breaking with their usual pattern, neither Harpo's harp nor Chico's piano is used in the film, although Harpo briefly pretends to play harp on the strings of a piano. The musical introduction to Groucho's character
6026-471: The Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. During World War I many countries suspended their gold standard in varying ways. There was high inflation from WWI, and in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic , Austria , and throughout Europe. In the late 1920s there
6157-521: The Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932. At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in
6288-489: The Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard . At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act , which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit
6419-525: The Flag, Boys! (1958), a comedy starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward . His last picture was the poorly received Satan Never Sleeps (1962), which, like My Son John , was a stern critique of Communism . Auteurist critic Andrew Sarris has said that McCarey "represents a principle of improvisation in the history of the American film." Through most of his career, McCarey's filming method, rooted in
6550-468: The Freedonian national anthem, the four men start throwing fruit at her instead. Comparing the original scripts with the finished film, most of the characters' initial scripted names were later changed. Only the names of Chicolini and Mrs. Teasdale were kept. Groucho's character—originally named "Rufus T. Firestone "—eventually became Rufus T. Firefly, while the name of Harpo's character—named Pinky in
6681-442: The Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that – building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz – add non-monetary explanations. There
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#17327878422486812-642: The Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history. Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade
6943-528: The Los Angeles Times called "the greatest fight promoter in the world." Leo McCarey would later make a boxing comedy with Harold Lloyd called The Milky Way (1936). McCarey graduated from the University of Southern California law school and besides the law tried mining, boxing, and songwriting before becoming an assistant director to Tod Browning in 1919. It was McCarey's boyhood friend,
7074-509: The Marx Brothers' previous films, Duck Soup was a financial disappointment, though not an outright box-office failure as is sometimes reported. The film opened to mixed reviews, although this by itself did not end the group's association with Paramount. Bitter contract disputes, including a threat by the Marxes to leave and found their own production company, soured their negotiations with the studio just as Duck Soup went into production. After
7205-481: The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on
7336-544: The U.K. economy, which experienced an economic downturn throughout most of the late 1920s, was less severely impacted by the shock of the depression than the U.S. By contrast, the German economy saw a similar decline in industrial output as that observed in the U.S. Some economic historians attribute the differences in the rates of recovery and relative severity of the economic decline to whether particular countries had been able to effectively devaluate their currencies or not. This
7467-490: The U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the American economy. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5% of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67% of U.S. capital investment. The massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending
7598-602: The United States Library of Congress deemed Duck Soup "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry . Wealthy widow Gloria Teasdale is asked to give twenty million dollars to the small, financially struggling nation of Freedonia ; she agrees on the condition that Rufus T. Firefly is appointed the country's leader. Meanwhile, Ambassador Trentino of neighboring Sylvania
7729-685: The United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment. Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in
7860-543: The United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36. According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had
7991-638: The Wall Street crash, after which the slide continued for three years, which was accompanied by a loss of confidence in the financial system. By 1933, the U.S. unemployment rate had risen to 25 percent, about one-third of farmers had lost their land, and about half of the country's 25,000 banks had gone out of business. Many people, unable to pay mortgages or rent, became homeless and relied on begging or charities to feed themselves. The U.S. federal government initially did little to help. President Herbert Hoover , like many of his fellow Republicans , believed in
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#17327878422488122-470: The actor and future fellow director David Butler , who referred him to Browning. Browning convinced McCarey, despite his photogenic looks, to work on the creative side as a writer rather than as an actor. McCarey then honed his skills at the Hal Roach Studios . Roach had hired him as a gagman in 1923, after McCarey had impressed him with his sense of humor, following a game of handball together at
8253-460: The banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch . One reason why
8384-492: The basic plot of Duck Soup was in place. In February, Paramount announced that the title had been changed to Grasshoppers ("because animal stories are so popular"), and that filming was set back to February 20. However, on May 11, 1933, the Marx Brothers' father Sam "Frenchie" Marx died in Los Angeles, and shortly afterward the contract dispute with Paramount was settled. The New York Post reported on May 17 that
8515-492: The battlefield, 'Cause all God's chillun got guns! (The song makes a reprise in the 1937 Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races as " All God's Chillun Got Rhythm " in the Lindy Hop production number.) Another repeated gag involved Harpo, who drives a motorcycle with a sidecar, as a chauffeur, to transport Groucho. Twice, after Groucho gives the orders to Harpo, Harpo rides his motorcycle away, leaving Groucho stranded in
8646-465: The behavior of housewives. The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II . Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate
8777-462: The collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier. While the precise causes for the occurrence of the Great depression are disputed and can be traced to both global and national phenomena, its immediate origins are most conveniently examined in the context of the U.S. economy, from which
8908-456: The comedy, leave the story." Groucho did not initially think highly of the film. When asked the significance of the film's politics, Groucho only shrugged and said: "What significance? We were just four Jews trying to get a laugh." Nevertheless, the Brothers were ecstatic when Mussolini took the film as a personal insult and banned it in Italy. Residents of Fredonia, New York , also protested
9039-582: The country. Firefly agrees to the plan, but after a series of personal insults exchanged with Trentino, the plan goes awry when Firefly slaps Trentino instead. The incident brings the two countries to the brink of war. Meanwhile, Firefly and Trentino both attempt to woo Mrs. Teasdale in the hopes of getting their respective hands on her late husband's wealth. Trentino learns from Sylvanian spy Vera Marcal that Freedonia's plans of war are in Mrs. Teasdale's possession, and tells Vera to assist Chicolini and Pinky in stealing
9170-475: The crash was a mere symptom of more general economic trends of the time, which had already been underway in the late 1920s. A contrasting set of views, which rose to prominence in the later part of the 20th century, ascribes a more prominent role to failures of monetary policy . According to those authors, while general economic trends can explain the emergence of the downturn, they fail to account for its severity and longevity; they argue that these were caused by
9301-569: The crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act on 17 June 1930. The Act was ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy from foreign competition by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians , Monetarists and Austrian economists ) is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff had, in fact, achieved an opposite effect to what
9432-633: The decade. The Depression had devastating economic effects on both wealthy and poor countries: all experienced drops in personal income , prices ( deflation ), tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, and unemployment in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world , especially those dependent on heavy industry , were heavily affected. Construction virtually halted in many countries, and farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by up to 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered
9563-408: The depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally": The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and
9694-679: The direction by others. By 1929, he was vice-president of production for the studio. Less well known from this period are the shorts he directed with Max Davidson when Roach put together the Irish-American McCarey with the Jewish-American actor for a series of "dialect comedies." They have been rediscovered in recent years, after their exhibition in 1994 at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone Italy. In
9825-435: The domestic price level to decline ( deflation ). There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression. Some economic studies have indicated that the rigidities of the gold standard not only spread the downturn worldwide, but also suspended gold convertibility (devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did
9956-402: The drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of
10087-427: The economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment. The American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. This finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought
10218-576: The end of the month. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on 24 October, Black Thursday , the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on 28 October, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday but by then significant damage had been done. Though
10349-500: The explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating
10480-503: The few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially. In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be
10611-583: The film because they feared that the similar-sounding nation would hurt their city's reputation. The Marx Brothers quipped in response, telling them to change the name of their town to keep from hurting their movie. Despite the tepid critical and commercial response at the time, Duck Soup is now seen as a classic political farce . Film critic Danel Griffin believes that Duck Soup is "on par with other war comedies like Chaplin 's The Great Dictator and Kubrick 's Dr. Strangelove , only slightly more unnerving in that Duck Soup doesn't seem to realize it
10742-632: The film during the 1960s and '70s dovetailed with the counterculture of the era. American literary critic Harold Bloom considers the end of Duck Soup one of the greatest works of American art produced in the 20th century. In 1990, Duck Soup was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Duck Soup
10873-436: The film fulfilled their contractual obligations to Paramount, the Marxes and the studio agreed to part ways. While contemporaneous critics of Duck Soup felt it did not quite rise to the level of its predecessors, critical and popular opinion has evolved and the film has since achieved the status of a classic. Duck Soup is now widely considered to be a masterpiece of comedy and the Marx Brothers' finest film. In 1990,
11004-628: The final product—was given in the Paramount pressbook as "Brownie". "Ambassador Frankenstein of Amnesia" was quickly changed to Ambassador Trentino of Sylvania. Zeppo's character remained Firefly's son until very late in production, finally becoming Bob Roland, his secretary; also, Mrs. Teasdale's niece "June Parker" transformed into Vera Marcal, first introduced as Trentino's "niece" before ultimately becoming his companion. The Marx Brothers' previous film, Horse Feathers , had been Paramount 's highest-grossing film of 1932. Encouraged by this success,
11135-505: The first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations . This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August
11266-606: The government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing
11397-519: The home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws. In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives. In Germany,
11528-527: The initial crisis spread to the rest of the world. In the aftermath of World War I , the Roaring Twenties brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. Initially, the year 1929 dawned with good economic prospects: despite a minor crash on 25 March 1929, the market seemed to gradually improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at
11659-563: The lack of an adequate response to the crises of liquidity that followed the initial economic shock of 1929 and the subsequent bank failures accompanied by a general collapse of the financial markets. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with
11790-521: The market entered a period of recovery from 14 November until 17 April 1930, the general situation had been a prolonged slump. From 17 April 1930 until 8 July 1932, the market continued to lose 89% of its value. Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States ,
11921-414: The mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S. Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then
12052-423: The monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view
12183-420: The more orderly world of The Cocoanuts with its musical banalities. [...] Many right-thinkers laughed themselves silly in 1933—but a large number didn't. [...] The unrelieved assault of Marxian comedy was simply too much for some people. Years later, Groucho's son Arthur Marx described Irving Thalberg 's assessment of the film's purported failure during a National Public Radio interview: [Thalberg] said
12314-502: The most to make recovery possible. Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves , in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets. Japan and the Scandinavian countries followed in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and
12445-427: The most. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 ended the Depression, as it stimulated factory production, providing jobs for women as militaries absorbed large numbers of young, unemployed men. The precise causes for the Great Depression are disputed. One set of historians, for example, focuses on non-monetary economic causes. Among these, some regard the Wall Street crash itself as the main cause; others consider that
12576-582: The need to balance the national budget and was unwilling to implement expensive welfare spending . In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , which taxed imports with the intention of encouraging buyers to purchase American products, which worsened the Depression because foreign governments retaliated with tariffs on American exports. In 1932, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation , which offered loans to businesses and support to local governments. In
12707-470: The others in "Freedonia's Going to War", filling out the four-cornered symmetry as the Brothers sing and dance in pairs during the number. The "Freedonia National Anthem" is used frequently throughout the film, both as vocal and instrumental; the entire song seems to consist of "Hail, Hail, Freedonia, land of the brave and free", contrasting with the final line of The Star-Spangled Banner . The "Sylvania theme", which sounds vaguely like " Rule, Britannia! ",
12838-483: The physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1 ⁄ 3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during
12969-400: The piano while the other three play saxophones while eluding their pursuers on an ocean liner . The introductory scene, showing ducks swimming in a kettle and quacking merrily, is scored with an instrumental medley of the aforementioned songs, and it is also the only scene in the film that has to do with ducks and soup. Although Duck Soup did not perform as well as Horse Feathers , it was
13100-467: The plans. Chicolini is eventually caught by Firefly and put on trial, during which Firefly again slaps Trentino. This causes Trentino to declare war on Freedonia; overcome with excitement, everyone at the trial then begins singing and dancing. Chicolini and Pinky join Firefly and Roland in the anarchic battle that follows. Some time later, Freedonia is losing the war and army morale is breaking down amidst
13231-480: The policies prolonged the Depression instead of shortening it. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%; in the U.S., the Depression resulted in a 30% contraction in GDP. Recovery varied greatly around the world. Some economies, such as the U.S., Germany and Japan started to recover by the mid-1930s; others, like France, did not return to pre-shock growth rates until later in
13362-459: The political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States , Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System . Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014) Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in
13493-408: The radio, by throwing it out the window, shattering the glass. Harpo often doffed his hat on-screen, but Chico very rarely removed his Tyrolean hat , even when indoors. For a few seconds on-screen in the earlier scene, Chico's head is uncovered, revealing a wavy wig. Chico had already started going bald when the brothers appeared in their first Broadway production, I'll Say She Is , in 1924. All of
13624-434: The scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions." According to Christina Romer , the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of
13755-564: The scene in a woman's bedroom, panning across the foot of the bed. A pair of men's shoes are shown on the floor, then a pair of women's shoes and then four horseshoes . The camera cuts to a shot of the entire room: Pinky is sleeping in one bed with the horse, while the woman is in another bed. The film's writers recycled a joke used in Horse Feathers in this dialogue with Chico: Prosecutor: Chicolini, isn't it true you sold Freedonia's secret war code and plans? Chicolini: Sure! I sold
13886-605: The set. French director Jean Renoir once paid the great tribute of saying that "Leo McCarey understood people better than any other Hollywood director." Leo McCarey died on July 5, 1969, aged 70, from emphysema . He was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California . His younger brother, director Ray McCarey , had died 21 years earlier. In 1978, Leo McCarey's production records, including scripts, budgets and correspondence were donated to
14017-458: The sidecar. Later, Groucho has Harpo sit in the sidecar, while Groucho gets on the motorcycle, the sidecar, with Harpo in it, rides off away, again, leaving Groucho stranded. Shortly after, during the final battle scenes, "rightfully [...] called the funniest of all of cinema", Firefly can be seen wearing a different costume in almost every sequence until the end of the film, including American Civil War uniforms (first Union and then Confederate),
14148-404: The silents, was to drastically alter the story ideas, bits of business, and dialogue in the scripts previously provided to the studios and the actors. He would usually sit at a piano and doodle as the sometimes exasperated crew waited for inspiration. As Bing Crosby said about Going My Way : "I think probably 75 per cent of each day's shooting was made up on the set by Leo." While this technique
14279-935: The sixth-highest-grossing film of 1933, according to Glenn Mitchell in The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia and Simon Louvish in Monkey Business . However, the film was a box office disappointment for Paramount. One possible reason for the film's lukewarm reception is that it was released during the depths of the Great Depression . Audiences were taken aback by its cynicism at a time of economic and political crisis. According to Leonard Maltin in The Great Movie Comedians : As wonderful as Monkey Business , Horse Feathers , and Duck Soup seem today, some critics and moviegoers found them unpleasant and longed for
14410-589: The sound era, McCarey focused on feature-film direction, working with many of the biggest stars of the era, including Gloria Swanson ( Indiscreet , 1931 ), Eddie Cantor ( The Kid From Spain , 1932 ), the Marx Brothers ( Duck Soup , 1933 ), W.C. Fields ( Six of a Kind , 1934 ), and Mae West ( Belle of the Nineties , 1934). A series of six films at Paramount came to a crashing halt with his production of Make Way for Tomorrow in 1937. While
14541-856: The story of an elderly couple who have to be separated for economic and family reasons during the Depression was not without humor in its treatment, the results were too unpopular at the box office and the director was let go. Nonetheless the film was recognized early on for its importance by being selected for the permanent collection of the recently formed Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In later years it became canonical, and even considered by some as McCarey's masterpiece, due to perceptive champions such as Bertrand Tavernier , Charles Silver and Robin Wood . Later in 1937, invited to Columbia, McCarey earned his first Academy Award for Best Director for The Awful Truth , with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant ,
14672-467: The studio suggested on August 2, 1932, that they rush out a follow-up. Already at this early stage, the story (provisionally entitled Oo La La ) was set in a mythical kingdom. On August 11, 1932, the Los Angeles Times reported that production would commence in five weeks with the famed Ernst Lubitsch directing. This was a turbulent time in the Marx Brothers' career. The Great Depression
14803-425: The title for the film, having previously used it for an earlier directorial effort with Laurel and Hardy . This continued the "animal" titles of the Brothers' previous three films, Animal Crackers , Monkey Business and Horse Feathers . "Duck soup" was American English slang referring to something easy to do. Conversely, "to duck something" meant to avoid it. When Groucho was asked for an explanation of
14934-416: The title, he quipped, "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life." McCarey also thought up "the very Laurel & Hardy-like sequence in which Harpo and Chico stage a break-in at Mrs Teasdale's house." Another McCarey contribution was the "mirror scene", a revival of an old Marx Brothers vaudeville act. In
15065-519: The trouble with Duck Soup is you've got funny gags in it, but there's no story and there's nothing to root for. You can't root for the Marx Brothers because they're a bunch of zany kooks. [Thalberg] says, "You gotta put a love story in your movie so there'll be something to root for, and you have to help the lovers get together." Most critics at the time disliked Duck Soup because of its "dated" look at politics. Christopher Null believes that "the send-up of Mussolini -types doesn't quite pan out. Take
15196-476: The world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933. There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and
15327-673: The world. The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of National Socialist ('Nazi') and Communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in
15458-778: The worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective. Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births. Among
15589-427: Was Cary Grant and then everyone else was an also-ran." After the success of The Awful Truth McCarey could have become, like Frank Capra , a Columbia contract director with a certain independence. Instead, he went his own way, selling the story that would become The Cowboy And The Lady to Sam Goldwyn and then moving to RKO for three films. A car accident in 1940 prevented him from directing My Favorite Wife,
15720-488: Was a remake (with precisely the same script) of his 1939 film Love Affair with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer . In 1993, the hugely popular romantic comedy film Sleepless In Seattle by Nora Ephron made such frequent references to An Affair To Remember that it gave the older film a whole new lease on life in revivals, cable TV, and video, with the result that it is probably McCarey's most popular and easily accessible film today. He followed this hit with Rally Round
15851-658: Was a scramble to deflate prices to get the gold standard's conversation rates back on track to pre-WWI levels, by causing deflation and high unemployment through monetary policy. In 1933 FDR signed Executive Order 6102 and in 1934 signed the Gold Reserve Act . The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject
15982-478: Was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average ad valorem (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $ 5.2 billion in 1929 to $ 1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did
16113-474: Was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of
16244-426: Was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz . They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction ". This caused a price drop of 33% ( deflation ). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing
16375-500: Was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by
16506-446: Was intended. It exacerbated the Great Depression by preventing economic recovery after domestic production recovered, hampering the volume of trade; still there is disagreement as to the precise extent of the Act's influence. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was one of the leading causes of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened
16637-628: Was raging and Paramount Pictures was attempting to stave off bankruptcy. A reorganization of the studio brought fears that money due the Marxes would never be paid; as a result, the Brothers threatened to leave Paramount and form their own company, Marx Bros., Inc. Their first planned independent production was a film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize -winning Broadway musical Of Thee I Sing , with Norman McLeod leaving Paramount to direct. During late 1932 and early 1933, Groucho and Chico were also working on Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel ,
16768-412: Was responsible for a certain awkwardness and some rough edges in the finished works, many of McCarey's scenes had a freshness and spontaneity lacking in the typical mainstream Hollywood cinema. He was not the only director of his time to work this way: fellow comedy directors Gregory La Cava , Howard Hawks and George Stevens – the last also a Roach graduate – were known for their use of improvisation on
16899-483: Was the last of the five Marx Brothers films released by Paramount Pictures. In the film, Groucho portrays the newly installed president of the fictional country of Freedonia. Zeppo is his secretary, while Chico and Harpo are spies for the neighboring country of Sylvania. Relations between Firefly and the Sylvanian ambassador (Calhern) deteriorate during the film, eventually leading the two countries to war. Compared to
17030-470: Was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935 , which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that
17161-559: Was to supervise production, beginning in January 1933. By December 1932, Firecrackers had become Cracked Ice . Grover Jones was also reported to have contributed to the first draft by Ruby and Kalmar. In The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia , Glenn Mitchell says that "the first script's content is difficult to determine". On January 18, 1933, Harry Ruby, Bert Kalmar and Grover Jones submitted to Paramount their "Second Temporary Script" for Cracked Ice , and Paramount announced that shooting would commence on February 15. This script shows that
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