Hail, Hail, Freedonia!

Thursday night I get an excited phone call from the Reverend Speats, who's always tapped into a Higher Power. "I have had The Vision," he gasped. "God spaketh to me last night through the pages of the L.A. Times, His Word set in Times Roman Font No. 12. The New Beverly Cinema, which layeth in the bountiful holy harvest one block south of La Brea and Beverly in West Los Angeles, near the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, is showing one--nay, two--Marx Bros. classics that the Lord has seen fit to bequeath the holy titles Animal Crackers and Duck Soup! Praised be the moviegoer!"

"Holy shit!" I screamed. "God is good!"

"Nay," corrected the Reverend. "Groucho is good. I have yet to forgive the Creator for unleashing the infidel Murry Wilson and his plague of Many Moods."

The Sabbath rolls around, but unfortunately the Rev is called away on matters most holy. He leaves me with these parting words via cellphone: "Tell Groucho I sent you." So I leave my home of four years and board the Montebello 10 to the corner of Goodrich and Whittier, transfer to the Rapid Red Line bound for Santa Monica via Wilshire Boulevard, disembark at the corner of Wilshire and La Brea, and trod my path up La Brea to Beverly and turn left, where salvation awaits one block west: the New Beverly Cinema, a modest building of blue with noble marquee announcing a triple bill of Animal Crackers, followed by Duck Soup, then the sodden W.C. Fields anarchy of The Bank Dick, for which, sadly, I do not linger, in observance of my unyielding weekend schedule. But I've seen Bank Dick a trillion times anyway. I've seen the other movies a trillion times too, but never on the big screen, and I can hardly squander the opportunity for a communal experience with like-minded folks.

I pay my six bucks (six bucks for two movies! I haven't paid prices like that since 1987!), then relinquish $2.50 ($2.50!) for a large (large!) Cherry Coke, and take my seat in the theater's guts, two rows back from the screen, which has been modified by a half-drawn curtain to accommodate the frame/scope of 1930s films. The place is about half-full, tiny pockets of life sprinkled throughout. A few people have brought their kids. Small kids. A number of elderly folks too. A threesome drops down along the row in front of me: A large man with his friend and said friend's significant other. The girlfriend, who's English, is being indoctrinated into the Marxian world. They're excitedly double-teaming her on the brothers' finer points as the lights fade overhead.

Previews: "Lowurrrd...won'tcha bah me...a Mursaydees Benz...." Janis, an interesting looking documentary on Janis Joplin with footage of the candid personality interspersed with the performer caterwauling the electrified Holding Company shit out of "Ball And Chain." Another film from the director of Ringu, this one involving a dead boy. Uma Thurman promising to kill Bill (the New Beverly will screen both volumes back-to-back in September). Then fanfare. The feature attraction is about to begin. The dump goes nuts.

While I love Animal Crackers, I only love certain scenes, which are threaded together with the barest hint of anything. The subplot involving the Beauregard painting has never interested me, and aside from the brothers' interaction, "Hooray For Captain Spaulding," the "fish/flask/flash" scene, the card game, and Margaret Dumont, there's really nothing else to watch. Most of the performances are wooden and careful in the new sound era though, thanks to the big screen, I gain a finer appreciation for Lillian Roth, who gamely soldiers through her thankless sawdust ingenue young lover role, but has the most interesting facial tics and expressions on her button-cute puss--it's a jazzbaby lark--and she has one of the finest shades-of-Groucho lines spoken by any of the industry-standard starcrossed fair Marx damsels, when she tells her loverboy, "...then we can get married and divorced in no time!" This showing of Crackers is marred by two instances of film breakage and one of those "ohmygodigottachangethereel!" realizations of the human projectionist, but other than that it goes off without a hitch, and the print looks great. To think this sucker was once forgotten for 30-40 years until ardent fan campaigning in the '70s brought it back into moviehouse circulation, for which Groucho was happily alive to see. And nothing's changed in those 30 years from the 1930s from--what the fuck--all time: The Marx Bros. are funny. Timelessly so. The audience went nuts.

After the movie I amble up the aisle for some air. I pass an elderly woman with a beatific grin. She gently covers my hand with hers as I pass and she says, "I saw this movie when I was a little girl in Europe 70 years ago--I'm 85 now--and it still works!"

Ten minutes later the second feature begins. Duck Soup. The place is PACKED. Not only did I lose my seat by getting up, I lost my entire row. Where did all these people come from? I find an empty spot in the front row. I barely hear the movie. The sound is fine (great, even, especially during the very loud scene where Harpo and Chico have to creep around Dumont's house at night to look for Freedonia's war plans), but everyone around me is literally on the floor, shaking the walls--and I'm one of them. Little kids in the group go apeshit whenever Harpo even threatens to enter the camera frame (I marvel at how genius the Marx Bros. were at adapting to every age level: when you're a child you go for Harpo, but as you get older, you learn, on an intellectual level, to appreciate the other brothers while retaining your undying love for the mischievous cherub); this is true even upon their first introduction to him. He doesn't even have to engage in tomfoolery--the second he surfaces there's something in his eyes that gets 'em every time. They're immediately drawn to him upon first sight.

Duck Soup must be seen on the big screen. The laughs are amplified that much more, and that musical number ("To war! To war! To war we're gonna go!/A hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-ho!" and the medley of "Oh, Susannah" and "All God's Chillun Got Wings") exploding from nowhere, effectively ending the treason trial of Chicolini (Chico), does a masterful job at both skewering and embracing the pompous MGM style. It's quite a marvelous set piece, ending on the perfect note: an arresting shot of the boys in colonial gear, preparing for battle. One if by land, two if by sea! Groucho: "They've double-crossed us; they're coming by land AND sea!" Anarchy at its finest that never lets up, even at the final frame, where the brothers pelt Margaret Dumont with fruit. Who needs a cohesive storyline when chaos is your umbrella?

Next month: Horse Feathers and Monkey Business. Right the fuck on.