DUCK SOUP

The Marx Brothers, Margaret Dumont

Universal Pictures; Directed by Leo McCarey

Black and White; Not Rated; 70 minutes; 1933

, VHS

DUCK SOUP is the Marx Brothers’ purest and most insane film. This pointed political satire contains some of the brothers’ most famous sequences—the Paul Revere parody, the "We’re Going To War" number, a spoof of 1930s musicals, the mirror scene, and, most famous of all, a final battle episode that has since been copied by everyone from Woody Allen to Mad Magazine.