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A night at the Opera see text

Born in New York city, the Marx brothers were the sons of jewish immigrants from different parts of Germany. Initially there were five brothers in the group: Gummo, Harpo, Chico, Groucho and Zeppo

They belonged to a family of artist and learned to play different instruments in their childhood. Harpo played the harp, Chico was an excellent pianist whereas Groucho played the guitar and sang.

Anyway, what really made them famous were their abilities as humorists and comedians. They began their career as theatre actors at the beginning of the XXth century. Gummo left the group in 1914 and they became only four.

By that time they began to develop their characters on stage, Groucho grew a moustache, Harpo wore a wig and never spoke, Chico imitated an Italian accent and Zeppo was a serious man.

In the 1920's they had become one of America's most popular theatrical acts, and they were stars in Broadway. At that time, cinema was also becoming very popular and in 1929 they signed a contract with Paramount pictures and moved to Hollywood. Their first movies were adaptations of their Broadway shows: The Cocoanuts (1929) and  Animal Crackers (1931) Their first film not to be based in a Broadway production was Monkey Business (1931) which was followed by Horse Feathers (1932) and Duck Soup (1933) for many critics and in my own opinion their best film where Groucho plays the part of Rufus T. Firefly, the president of a small imaginary country: Freedonia which starts a war against Syldavia a neighbour country.

After that, Zeppo left the group and the Marx brothers (now only three) signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, their films in this period include: A Night at the Opera (1935, see trailer above), A Day at the Races (1939) and Go West (1940), in 1941 they announced  that they wanted to retire from the cinema but after some years, they had money problems and made two more films: A Night in Casablanca (1946) and  Love Happy (1949).

The last film in which they appeared together was The Story of Mankind in 1957.

The Marx brothers developed a very particular kind of humour which has inspired other artists.

 

The Marx Brothers

 

All the brothers and their real names were:

Chico — Leonard, (March 22, 1887–October 11, 1961)
Harpo — Arthur, (November 23, 1888–September 28, 1964)
Groucho — Julius Henry, (October 2, 1890–August 19, 1977)
Gummo — Milton, (October 23, 1892–April 21, 1977)
Zeppo — Herbert, (February 25, 1901–November 30, 1979)

 

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