The Marx Brothers Collection

To Vietnam War-era college students, wisecracking interloper Groucho, mute sprite Harpo, and hustler Chico were literally poster boys for anti-establishment comedy (today's youth seems to favor boys-behaving-badly gross-outs over rebellion). From the rapturous heights of A Night at the Opera to the desperate depths of A Night in Casablanca, this five-disc, seven-film set charts the slow, sad decline of the once fearless comic anarchists. A Night at the Opera and its even more popular follow-up, A Day at the Races, represent the peak of the brothers' MGM period, but even here there are harbingers of things to come. Producer Irving Thalberg, who died during the production of A Day at the Races, insisted on structuring the comedy routines between increasingly intrusive musical numbers and icky romance. Room Service, At the Circus, Go West, The Big Store, and A Night in Casablanca all have moments that recapture the glory of the Marx Brothers' undiluted Paramount films (Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, Monkey Business), but the once wild boys were now decidedly tamed. Each disc nostalgically recreates an old fashioned night at the movies, complete with vintage short subjects, cartoons, and original movie previews, while archival goodies for the Marx-phile who has seen everything include a clip from a subdued Groucho's 1961 appearance on The Hy Gardner Show. Commentaries by Leonard Maltin (on A Night at the Opera) and Marx Brothers Encyclopedia author Glenn Mitchell (on A Day at the Races) are enthusiastic and exhaustive, while two new Marx tributes are worth a look just to see Dom DeLuise inexplicably fondling a parakeet and scrambling eggs. Critic James Agee once said, "The worst the Marx Brothers might ever make would be better worth seeing than most other things I can think of." While this collection occasionally puts that sentiment to the test, it's still a must-have for most. Highly recommended. (D. Liebenson)