Comic Legends: Groucho Marx & Redd Foxx

Dipping into its seemingly inexhaustible vault of vintage TV footage, MPI Home Video has come up with rare standup performances for this hour-long compilation, part of its aptly named Comic Legends series. The irrepressible Groucho Marx, seen here in a live appearance near the end of his half-century career, interacts with delighted audience members and fields questions from announcer Ed Jordan about his famous brothers and their joint movie career. Elderly and somewhat frail, Groucho still delivers wry ripostes with aplomb, brandishing his trademark cigar, and appearing to enjoy the byplay as much as his enraptured listeners. Redd Foxx, the veteran nightclub comic who was cracking up live audiences long before he starred in Sanford and Son, performs a more standardized but no less hysterical act, liberally spiced with topical and behavioral humor, as he jokes about poverty, slavery, race relations, women, and even the Vietnam War in a sidesplitting set also taped before a live audience. Recommended. Aud: P. (E. Hulse)