The Cocoanuts (1929)

cocoanutsThe Marx Brothers’ first and worst, but you still need to see it. Groucho, Chico and Harpo’s personalities are in full psychotic bloom here. This is an adaptation of their hit stage show written by George S. Kaufman with songs by Irving Berlin and it’s a relic of a time when comedy often wasn’t considered enough to sustain a night at the theatre. So producers threw in straight-faced musical interludes and maybe shoehorned in a love story that had little to do with the gags. When this is over, you likely won’t be able to pass a pop quiz on the plot (and the songs aren’t memorable, either), but the auction scene where Groucho plays off of Chico in a game of misunderstanding is still witty almost ninety years later and this is where you’ll find the famous “why a duck?” bit.