BOOTLEG FILES 823: “The Three Marx Brothers” (segment for a proposed 1961 animated TV series inspired by the Marx Brothers).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A rights clearance issue has kept this out of circulation for many years.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe as part of a wider animation or Marx Brothers release.
By the end of the 1950s, a few efforts were put forth to reunite the Marx Brothers, who had not worked together as a team since “A Night in Casablanca” in 1946 – the trio were billed together for “Love Happy” in 1949, but that film was mostly centered on Harpo with Chico in a supporting role and Groucho making a few appearances without his brothers during the course of the story.
Harpo and Chico appeared together in a 1959 “General Electric Theatre” episode titled “The Incredible Jewel Robbery,” with Groucho joining them in the final seconds of the show for an unbilled appearance. The siblings were brought together for a proposed weekly series called “Deputy Seraph,” but production was halted during the shooting of the pilot episode when Chico was diagnosed with arteriosclerosis and could not be insured. The project was dropped after only about 15 minutes of rough footage was shot.
In 1960, Billy Wilder proposed creating a feature film called “A Day at the United Nations” that would have positioned the Marxes as jewel thieves who are mistaken for U.N. delegates. Wilder created a 40-page treatment for the film, but that project was canceled when Harpo had his own heart health issues that prevented him from being insured for a feature-length production.
In early 1961, the Screen Gems animation studio announced a solution that could have reunited the Marxes in voice and spirit, if not body. The company announced it had a contract with the Marxes to use their likenesses in a half-hour animated television series under the banner “The Three Marx Brothers.” Tri-Cinemation Inc., a stop-motion animation company acquired by Screen Gems, would make figurines of the Marxes and Groucho and Chico would supply their voices – the silent Harpo did not need dialogue for this endeavor.
Reportedly, Chico recorded some of his voice performance before he passed away in October 1961. The series, which was supposed to debut in the fall of 1962, was never completed and only a five-minute segment is known to exist. This short was never broadcast and was not widely seen until it turned up on YouTube in July 2021.
The short opens in a dilapidated apartment that the Marxes share. Groucho is sitting in a chair reading “Babes” magazine and picks up a magnifying glass shaped like a keyhole to spy the publication’s sexy models. For some reason, Groucho is wearing red and white striped socks that are clipped to a clothesline inside the apartment. Harpo enters carrying a newspaper in his mouth and holding his hands in a manner similar to a canine trained to sit up and beg – Groucho refers to him as “Harpo the wonder dog.” Harpo scissors the clothesline and Groucho goes bouncing his chair – the springs of the seat come lose and propel him up and down. Chico deadpans this is a “sure sign of spring.”
The telephone rings and it is Hortense Rittenhouse, a rich widow who is wild for Groucho. She speaks quickly and pleadingly for Groucho to marry her, but he replies that the day his home falls on his head will be the day they will be joined in matrimony. Naturally, the ceiling collapses on the brothers after Groucho hangs up the phone.
That evening, the Marxes are carrying a ladder across Mrs. Rittenhouse’s estate – Groucho plans to elope, explaining that he has “sundry reasons, not to mention my weekday reasons.” Harpo gets distracted by a Roman-style statue of a woman eating grapes (he breaks off and consumes one of the statue’s small fruits) while Groucho climbs the ladder to Mrs. Rittenhouse’s balcony. She emerges as a rather zaftig woman, and when she joins Groucho on the ladder it topples over. The three Marx Brothers wind up lying face down on the ground with the ladder and the hefty Mrs. Rittenhouse on top of them.
Details on this short’s creation are scant. The film doesn’t have on-screen credits or even a copyright, so it is possible this might have just been test footage – the short stops without properly ending. Chico’s voice does not sound like the faux-Italian Marx brother, although the Groucho voice almost captures the distinctive New York-style nasally speech pattern.
If this segment is any indication, doing a stop-motion animated version of the Marx Brothers was the wrong format. The genius of the comedy team’s peak years was their speed – the rapid patter of Groucho and Chico’s routines and the wild anarchy of Harpo’s silent slapstick. In this short, the characters move very slowly, and it doesn’t help that every Groucho joke is capped with the animated version rolling his eyes and twiddling his cigar. In comparison, a pilot episode made by Filmation in 1966 for another proposed Marx Brothers animated series was able to incorporate more visual humor at an appropriately cartoonish speed by using cel animation.
Marx Brothers fans and animation addicts will enjoy this curio. But in retrospect, perhaps it was best that this endeavor never got off the ground.
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