BOOTLEG FILES 914: “Time for Elizabeth” (1964 television production starring Groucho Marx).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the proverbial cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
In 1948, Broadway audiences were presented with “Time for Elizabeth,” a comedy co-authored by Oscar-winning writer Norman Krasna and Groucho Marx – yes, that Groucho Marx. The play was poorly received by critics and closed after eight performances. Oddly, Warner Bros. ignored the show’s commercial failure and paid the playwrights $500,000 for the screen rights – but the studio never got around to creating a screen version.
In the 1950s, Marx dusted off “Time for Elizabeth” and decided to take it on a tour of summer stock theaters. Marx always believed the Broadway run would have been more successful if he played the leading role instead of having character actor Otto Kruger in the part. This was a curious opinion, since the role was not designed for Groucho-style anarchy – instead, it was a bittersweet creation of a late middle-aged man who is fired after a long employment as a general manager for a New York City-based washing machine manufacturing company and finds himself uncomfortably adapting to an early (and forced) retirement.
Marx opened in “Time for Elizabeth” in 1952 at California’s La Jolla Playhouse. Harold J. Kennedy, who directed the 1957 summer stock premiere at New Jersey’s Grist Mill Playhouse, would recall in his autobiography the opening night audience for that production felt cheated by the production. “They didn’t care that Groucho was giving a lovely performance and playing the play honestly the way it was written,” Kennedy stated. “They came to see Groucho Marx the way they knew him and they weren’t seeing that.”
Kennedy added that Marx was aware of the audience’s reaction and he quickly worked to fix that. Subsequent performances saw changes to the material, with Marx taking on more of the wisecracking personality he displayed in films with his brothers and on television with his “You Bet Your Life” game show. Marx even managed to get a live duck that he pulled out of a desk, to the delight of the audience – and Kennedy quipped, “I am told that by the end of the tour the duck had a bigger part than Groucho did.”
Marx enjoyed several summer stock tours with “Time for Elizabeth” before he was approached to adapt it for television as part of “Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre,” an anthology series broadcast on NBC. Hope had nothing to do with this production, which was truncated from its original three-act version into an endeavor running a little less than 50 minutes.
For years, I avoided this version of “Time for Elizabeth” because it was burdened with a rotten reputation of being dull and unfunny, with a past-his-prime Marx framed by an onerous laugh track. I can say that the laugh track wasn’t necessary – but, then again, that was a common accessory of that era’s television comedies, and within a minute it is easy to ignore.
But “Time for Elizabeth” is hardly dull or unfunny – it is a charming little piece about a decent man who learns too late about problems that occur when he realizes his entire life was shaped by his work. In this case, Marx’s character of Ed Davis has his adult life defined – or, more accurately, confined – by a tyrannical boss who constantly blames him for every real and imagined problem. Davis can’t enjoy a dinner with his wife, his daughter and his future son-in-law without the boss interrupting the evening by demanding his return to the office. When he finally rebels, Davis is fired.
Initially, Davis is happy for his newfound freedom. He relocates with his wife to Florida, eager to begin a new lifestyle in the Sunshine State. But things don’t go as planned – he gets seasick on his first deepwater fishing trip, he mutilates a golf course in his attempts to whack a ball from its tee, and he is impatient for the seeds in his new garden to grow quickly. Socially, he feels like a fish out of water with neighbors who are painfully unsophisticated. An attempt to start a business with his son-in-law fails to take off. Mercifully, his former employer realizes the mistake in firing Davis and arrives in Florida begging him to return – with an offer to sail back to New York City on a luxury yacht.
The happy surprise in “Time for Elizabeth” is that Marx could break out of the Groucho persona and take on an uncharacteristic role. His performance as Davis is charming, touching, and funny in a very different style from his usual offerings. Marx was 74 when “Time for Elizabeth” was shot and he was clearly too old for the knockabout humor of the Marx Brothers films – and, to be frank, he was too old for this production, although a good toupee and make-up job help. But Alex Gottlieb’s skillful reshaping of the original play and Ezra Stone’s admirable direction steered Marx into a sincere consideration of an aging man whose moorings have been severed. (Marx breaks character at the very end of the production, but that’s not a problem.)
“Time for Elizabeth” also benefits from having great old-timers in the supporting cast, including Roland Winters (the one-time Charlie Chan) as the obstreperous boss and longtime theater and radio actress Kathryn Eames as Marx’s wife. Lyle Talbot and Madge Blake also turn up in smaller roles, while Marx’s then-wife Eden has a funny part as a gold-digger looking for older men to romance and fleece.
“Time for Elizabeth” was never released in any commercial home entertainment format, but a decent bootlegged copy is on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. Take some time to enjoy this work – it is a lot of fun.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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