By Edward Buzzell, 1940.
Starring Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx.
Rating: 6.5/10, 6.5/10.
By 1940, Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx were getting old, and their studio was losing faith in them. Actually, that had begun in 1935, when Paramount dropped them (after the disgusting failure of "Duck Soup"—what were people thinking?) and MGM started producing their films, starting with "A Night At The Opera." Not trusting the Brothers’ material alone, MGM began adding more characters and romantic subplots to the films, as if the genius of the Marxes was not enough to keep the audience’s attention. "A Night At The Opera" is still one of their best movies, and the silly subplots are easy to ignore, but the meddling continuted to escalate.
When "Go West" ended, I didn’t feel like I’d seen a Marx Brothers movie so much as a tedious melodrama about star-crossed lovers, yadda yadda, in which the Brothers made a few cameo roles, playing themselves as ordinary people. It was painful to watch Groucho and Chico talk to the other characters as if they were on the same level, the same kind of person. Only one of the straight up Marx Brothers moments—the one on the carriage where the Brothers wreak havoc with the other passengers by exchanging hats and doing amusing things with one woman’s bustle—was at all memorable. Groucho’s familiar vocal virtuosity here is somewhat present, but he never once made me actually laugh, and he seemed rather off his game. Shockingly enough, I don’t remember even one of his lines.
As usual, we get a scene of Chico playing the piano, and another of Harpo playing the harp, and as usual these are good. Chico’s hands, though by this point revoltingly gnarled, are still as dexterous as ever, and as always it is a joy to watch them at work. Harpo comes out less positively, not through any fault of his own, but through circumstances surrounding his performance. It is in the obligatory Western scene where they are kidnapped by Indians, and as Harpo starts to play, the Indian chief joins him on flute. Even aside from the horrific racial implications here, this addition is totally unnecessary, and a distraction from Harpo’s beautiful playing.
Rather than make me happy, "Go West" made me sad. It saddened me that MGM had so little confidence in the Marx Brothers’ genius. It saddened me that the movie was so rarely funny, and even more rarely memorable. Most of all it saddened me that I could see none of the joy on the screen that I can usually see in the Brothers. The stars did not seem to be enjoying the film, and what is sadder than that?