Despite some early friction between Groucho and Thalberg, due mainly to the producer's frankness about Duck Soup's performance, the Marx Brothers and Thalberg soon grew close. Believing their best performances came from rehearsal and tweaking, MGM allowed the Marx Brothers to take material for their new film on the road, in order to refine it before shooting.
The success of the tour boded well for their first picture with MGM, A Night At The Opera (1935). Now minus Zeppo, who had retired from performing, the dashing straight man would from here on in be played by a selection of young contract players. Allan Jones takes up the role in A Night At The Opera, playing the underdog tenor who eventually comes good, but the stars are still Groucho, Harpo, and Chico.
The rehearsal tour led to some memorable set pieces throughout the film, such as Groucho and Chico's contract signing, and the debunking of the cast in to Groucho's cabin. The film was a major success, and proved Thalberg's theory of adding a touch of structure to the Brothers' comedy a masterstroke. All over again, the Marx Brothers were superstars.
A Day At The Races
The Marx Brothers went on tour again to prepare for their follow-up picture, and found similar success. Just days after filming had begun on the picture, A Day At The Races (1937), Irving Thalberg was struck by a cold, and died several days later after it developed in to pneumonia. His death brought MGM to a standstill, and after many rewrites A Day At The Races was released in June 1937, nine months after initial shooting had commenced.
The film was another huge success, and featured the legendary 'Tutsi-Frutsi ice-cream' sketch between Groucho and Chico. A Day At The Races followed the same structural ideas as A Night At The Opera, although this time switched the action to the racecourse.
After Thalberg's death, Groucho claimed to lose interest in the movie business, and without the enigmatic producer, the Brothers were left without a strong voice with which to procure the best material. They decided upon a Broadway play called Room Service for their next project, and through Zeppo's work were loaned out to RKO to make it.
Room Service (1938) allowed Groucho, Harpo, and Chico the chance to play slightly different characters to the ones that had been playing for the last fifteen years, although the film still contains enough lunacy to not make it a complete departure. Room Service did not, however, match A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races at the box office.
At The Circus
The Marx Brothers returned to MGM for At The Circus (1939), a more conventional Marx comedy, which attained more success than Room Service. Without Thalberg's influence, the brothers were unable to take the material on tour, and as such At The Circus lacks the sheen and professionalism of their earlier MGM work.
Running with an idea Thalberg had pitched, MGM went for a Western-idea for Go West (1940) and after recognising a flatness in recent films, allowed the Marx Brothers to tour some of the material for the film. Set in the nineteenth century, the film references Buster Keaton's The General for its finale, and is held up by the sparkling performances the three comedians could give so effortlessly.
With interest in the Marx Brothers declining, they announced that their next picture, The Big Store (1941), would be their 'first farewell picture'. The humdrum response to the film proved the retirement idea to be sound.
They did return for the more successful A Night In Casablanca (1946) and the much less successful Love Happy (1949), which did prove to be the final Marx Brothers film. Groucho went on to great success on radio and television as the host of You Bet Your Life, whilst Harpo published the best-selling Harpo Speaks!. Chico's life of gambling and heavy-living caught up with him, and he never again found the success he had attained with his brothers.
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