I was very happy to see Margaret Dumont not playing the Margaret Dumont role
She worked with Wheeler and Woolsey again in their last film, High Flyers (1937). I'm looking forward to that much more now than I was.
W&W weren't insulters although irreverent when necessary, which I think helped them in the Code transition. They don't feel as defanged as the Marx Bros seemed when they went to MGM.
I missed the mile-a-minute double entendres and the middle-aged weirdo romance, but you're right, they feel much less as though they've been suddenly redirected from forces of anarchy to forces for social good—I think the chaos baby really helped. Not to mention stray bits like Wheeler identifying himself automatically as Spanky's mother or their peace offering of flowers suddenly wilting at the roar of the Colonel's threats. They still inhabit an essentially absurd and mutable universe. Like, the drunken horse chase was ridiculous, but I'm not sure it was any more ridiculous than the helium tires and frog radiator of Hips, Hips, Hooray! (1934). My God, RKO sure cranked its movies out.
I realized while writing this post that it is almost impossible for me to refer to either Wheeler or Woolsey by their character names. Sure, the kid keeps calling them "Uncle Elmer" and "Uncle Willie," but they don't look like a Willie and Elmer any more than they looked like a Curly and Spider in Hold 'Em Jail (1932) and I'm still not sure they had names in Cockeyed Cavaliers. I didn't bat an eye at it. They're just so very much themselves.
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She worked with Wheeler and Woolsey again in their last film, High Flyers (1937). I'm looking forward to that much more now than I was.
W&W weren't insulters although irreverent when necessary, which I think helped them in the Code transition. They don't feel as defanged as the Marx Bros seemed when they went to MGM.
I missed the mile-a-minute double entendres and the middle-aged weirdo romance, but you're right, they feel much less as though they've been suddenly redirected from forces of anarchy to forces for social good—I think the chaos baby really helped. Not to mention stray bits like Wheeler identifying himself automatically as Spanky's mother or their peace offering of flowers suddenly wilting at the roar of the Colonel's threats. They still inhabit an essentially absurd and mutable universe. Like, the drunken horse chase was ridiculous, but I'm not sure it was any more ridiculous than the helium tires and frog radiator of Hips, Hips, Hooray! (1934). My God, RKO sure cranked its movies out.
I realized while writing this post that it is almost impossible for me to refer to either Wheeler or Woolsey by their character names. Sure, the kid keeps calling them "Uncle Elmer" and "Uncle Willie," but they don't look like a Willie and Elmer any more than they looked like a Curly and Spider in Hold 'Em Jail (1932) and I'm still not sure they had names in Cockeyed Cavaliers. I didn't bat an eye at it. They're just so very much themselves.