Comedy : Anybody else think the Marx Brothers peaked with Duck Soup?

Anybody else think the Marx Brothers peaked with Duck Soup?

A lot of people think A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races are their best films but they just are not as funny as their previous efforts. My biggest complaint is that Chico became a nice guy. He is much more funny as a scumbag. He would still run cons on Groucho but he was a do-gooder with everybody else. I don't think Harpo was the same anarchic force either. They changed studios after Duck Soup. Here is what Wikipedia says:
Unlike the free-for-all scripts at Paramount, Thalberg insisted on a strong story structure that made the brothers more sympathetic characters, interweaving their comedy with romantic plots and non-comic musical numbers, and targeting their mischief-making at obvious villains. Thalberg was adamant that scripts include a "low point", where all seems lost for both the Marxes and the romantic leads. He instituted the innovation of testing the film's script before live audiences before filming began, to perfect the comic timing, and to retain jokes that earned laughs and replace those that did not. Thalberg restored Harpo's harp solos and Chico's piano solos, which had been omitted from Duck Soup.


Disney is CIA for kidz!
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