Cinema Sunday: The Big Store

Over the course of the posts I have written under Cinema Sunday, I have endeavored on a project to watch the movies of the Marx Brothers. 

While I've had a life long fascination with Groucho Marx and his brethren, my actual exposure to the their films was rather slim. So I've made a concerted effort to experience the movies in their filmography. 

Some movies I've enjoyed immensely (A Night at the Opera) and others I have merely tolerated. 

Today's movie is one of the latter. If the title The Big Store seems generic, it's a harbinger that the Marx Brothers, after 12 years in Hollywood, are just grinding these movies out. In fact, going into production on The Big Store, Groucho announced that it would be the last Marx Brothers movie.  

The plot, such as it is, involves a big department store.  Hiram Phelps, owner of Phelps Department Store, has died, leaving the store to his nephew, singer Tommy Rogers and to Tommy 's aunt Martha Phelps. 

Tommy wants to be a singer and doesn't want the store. Martha doesn't really want it either but I'll be damned if store manager Mr. Grover really does want the store and is prepared to kill Timmy and Martha to get it. 

Wow! That must be some store! '

Martha, suspecting some bad stuff is afoot and worried for Tommy's safety, hire private detective Wolf J. Flywheel (Groucho) for protection.

Martha is convinced this is a good decision. 

Flywheel along with Ravelli (Chico) and Wacky (Harpo) spend the rest of the movie working to disavow her of that notion.  

They do eventually expose Mr. Grover as the villain when Groucho comments, "I told you in the first reel he was a crook."

Groucho also breaks the fourth wall during the fashion show in ladies' wear when he comments on a model's dress "This is a bright red dress, but Technicolor is so expensive." 

There are two extended scenes with all three Marxes. One is in the store's bed department, with novel beds that come out of the walls and floor. The other is near the end of the film as Groucho, Chico and Harpo escape their pursuers in a madcap chase through the store, involving the elevator, a staircase, chandeliers, roller skates, a mail chute and a bicycle. It took a month to shoot this chase sequence involving a lot of stunt doubles and stop motion photography,  

For all the shenanigans going on in The Big Store, it's hard to escape the feeling that the Marx Brothers know full well they've done this a hundred times.  

In April 1941, Groucho told the Los Angeles Herald, "When I say we're getting sick of the movies, I mean the people are about to get sick of us...Our stuff is simply growing stale. So are we." 

While it was announce that The Big Store would be their last film, the Marx Brothers did return for A Night in Casablanca (1946) and Love Happy (1949) because according to Groucho, Chico needed the money.

Next week for Cinema Sunday, I will post about what was truly the last film to feature Groucho, Chico and Harpo.

And oh dear Lord, it is so bad.