Duck Soup

Let's end 2008 with one of my favorites:

Duck Soup. 1933 Paramount Pictures (now owned and released to DVD by Universal Pictures).
Starring: The Marx Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo), Margaret Dumont, Raquel Torres, Louis Calhern, Edmund Breese
Director: Leo McCarey
Part of the Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection, available at Amazon.

One of the funniest movies ever made, this was also Zeppo Marx's final film before his retirement from performing. I'm sure this is strictly a coincidence. Zeppo definitely added something to the early films, and sometimes I wonder how he would've added to later films the brothers made.

Anywho...

The wealthy widow Mrs. Gloria Teasdale (Dumont) insists that Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) be appointed leader of a small, bankrupt territory named Freedonia before she will provide some much needed financial assistance. The neighboring country Sylvania is attempting to take over Freedonia, and its ambassador Trentino (Calhern) tries to instigate a revolution when he isn't trying to woo Mrs. Teasdale. He also sends in two spies, Chicolini (Chico) and Pinky (Harpo) to dig up dirt on Firefly. They fail to find any damaging information, but they quickly infiltrate Freedonia's government after Firefly sees Chicolini selling peanuts on the street. Bob Roland (Zeppo), Firefly's personal assistant, suspects that Trentino is up to something, and recommends that Firefly "get rid of that man at once" by saying something to make Trentino mad enough to strike him. It backfires, and Firefly slaps Trentino after a series of personal insults.

Mrs. Teasdale has Freedonia's war plans, so Trentino orders Chicolini and Pinky to steal them. Firefly catches Chicolini and puts him on trial, which quickly turns into a farce. War is officially declared during the trial, and everyone breaks into song and dance. Chicolini and Pinky join Firefly and Roland in a typical wacky battle against Sylvania. Trentino gets trapped in a makeshift stocks, and surrenders after being pelted with large quantities of fruit. Despite that, Firefly refuses to stop throwing until they run out of produce. Mrs. Teasdale begins singing the Freedonia national anthem, and the boys start throwing fruit at her instead!

Highly, highly recommended.