BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

mike48128 Ouch! "The Tenement Symphony" is the worst musical number in all of the MGM Marx. Bros. films. It's not that racist, like many numbers, just very dumb. However, Harpo, dressed as "Beethoven" plays a "trio" of instruments, including harp, violin and cello, and it's brilliant! "Sing While You Sell" is somewhere in-between and "takes over the entire store" but seems better suited for "Mick and Judy" on Broadway than Groucho! The story:It's always about missing money or treasure, and this thin plot is no exception, so why ever bother to explain! Several hilarious scenes include the "Big Italian Family" shopping for cleverly-disguised bunk beds with Chico as the salesman ("I no make-a fun--I talk-a just like-a you") Also, the big chase at the end on roller skates and a unicycle is 10 minutes of sheer pandemonium, as "the crooks" chase them all around the big store. Great fun, but as mentioned, some of the music is truly bad or strange.

John T. Ryan RUMOR has it that Irving Thalberg, the 'Boy Wonder' Honcho of MGM, really dug the Marx Brothers. Even while they were over at Paramount, where the 4 Brothers made their first 5 films; the young Studio Head planned on how to make the very best bit of madcap Marxian Cinematic Lunacy.Following the poor showing of their politically oriented spoof, DUCK SOUP (Paramount, 1933), the Marx Boys found themselves persona non gratis at that Adolph Zukor/Jesse Lasky/Famous Players Lot. It was at this time that Mr. Thalberg got his wish when he brought the Boys to MGM. They came over but as the 3 Marx Brothers, sans youngest brother, Herbert (alias Zeppo).NEXT; they set out to make that ultimate Marx Brothers romp, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (MGM, 1935). The improved method was achieved by the use of testing out the material to be filmed and timing the laughs; as the one knock on the previous Paramount product was that one laugh would drown out the set up for the next.THE new method worked. The team with Chico, Harpo and Groucho received a new lease on life. They would be at Metro for about as long as had been their stay over at Paramount. Every thing was just honky dory for the team.AND then, the frail and chronically ill Mr. Thalberg died the following year of 1936. Their dealings with MGM were then all negotiated through new Studio Head and founding partner, Louis B. Mayer. Whereas Thalberg had been artistically inclined, cinematically motivated and was among the Brothers biggest fans; the gruff Mr. Mayer was strictly for the bottom line, practical, pragmatic and (allegedly) hated the Marx Brothers. Groucho, Chico and Harpo continued to work at the Studio; but there seemed to be a steady decline after the second MGM picture, 1937's A DAY AT THE RACES.BY the time the Marxian Laugh Express had arrived at THE BIG STORE, the team had done a total of 10 movies: 5 at Paramount, 4 at MGM and their solo shot with a previously written play with ROOM SERVICE (RKO Radio Pictures, 1938). Their act was well enough known now to make a Marx Outing by formula. So, they did do that thing! THE BIG STORE starts out with setting up a sort of precursing of that which would come later: like, Chico's being a poor, but honest and lovable piano teacher; in cahoots with one young Singer/Song Writer/Good Guy, Tommy Rogers (Tony Martin); who just happens to be inheriting half interest in a big, major downtown type Department Store.THE Present Manager of the store, one crooked and ill-tempered Mr. Grover just happens to be planning a nefarious plot to get control of the store by any means possible. Do you get the drift? THE Picture mixes in a great deal of musical numbers, big ensemble songs and songs for Mr. Martin, his female lead, Virginia Grey (as Joan Sutton); as well as some others, such as Virginia O'Brien and a group called Six Hits and a Miss.NOT to be thought of as being strictly a 'crepe hanger' we must say that even this is not the best Marx Brothers outing; it does contain a lot of excellent bits and should not be boycotted by any means. Some excellent comic interaction is done between Chico & Harpo with one Italian immigrant, Giuseppe (Henry Armetta). We also are witness to a parade of on screen ethnicities; done up in the typical stereotypes of the day. Italians, Blacks, Swedes, American Indians and Chinese family groupings are part of the innocently meant and harmlessly received by the audiences of the day.OTHER critical cast members included in THE BIG STORE'S Directory are William Tannen, Russell Hicks, Anna Demetrio, Paul Stanton, Bradley Page, Edgar Dearing and Al Hill.AND lest we forget the most important Lady to any Marx Film; for what would Groucho do if a movie of the Brothers did not include Miss Margaret Dumont; for the Grouch's horrid dalliances? PROMOTIONAL spots for this movie were done in a most unorthodox manner. There was a very serious sounding promo/trailer/preview of coming attractions which began with a very somber announcement from veteran character actor, Henry O'Neill, which stated that the Marx Brothers were retiring from the movies and this new picture, THE BIG STORE would be their farewell to the cinema, the Boys' swan song! APPARRENTLY there was some truth contained in this trailer as this marked the abrupt jettisoning of the Marxes from MGM and the Big Hollywood Studio system. From 1941 to the first post World War II year of 1946, Groucho, Chico and Harpo each operated as solo performers; doing personal appearances, guesting in Radio and even making some movie guest shots. Groucho, especially, did well on the Old Time Radio and later on the new medium of Television. Chico organized his own Big Band and went that route to keeping busy.IN the above mentioned year of 1946, the Threesome was lured once again to go in front of the cameras with A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA (Loma Productions/United Artists, 1946); which was a post War Comedy and spoof of Warner Brothers' Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman Blockbuster, CASABLANCA (1942); followed by LOVE HAPPY (Artists Alliance/United Artists, 1949). By this juncture, the old Marx Brothers routine had become a pale imitation of a caricature of its old self..AS a Film or more particularly as a Marx Brothers starring vehicle, we must give THE BIG STORE ** ½.POODLE SCHNITZ!!

Into_The_West I finally brought myself to watch all of the Big Store, the movie on the flip side of Go West DVD. I recall seeing Store (in the late 60's/early 70's I deliberately saw any Marx movie whether on TV or in a revival in a theatre until I had seen them all) years before and being bored out of my skull.I had tried to watch it a few weeks earlier, but gave up after the scene where the beds can be hidden in the wall or floors.This time, biting the bullet, I watched Groucho sing while he sold and the final chase scene with sound effects added that made it seem like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.And the end, I had to admit, The Big Store was passable--provided it had starred someone else.If you can erase the fact you're watching the Marx Brothers from your mind, The Big Store seems exactly like any overblown 1940's comedy. It well meets the standard for a Red Skelton film or perhaps something with Danny Kaye or early Jerry Lewis.If you can perform the mental feat that Groucho is Red Skelton, Chico is Danny Kaye and Harpo is Jerry Lewis (uggghhh!), the Big Store does not seem like the abysmal thing it is.Seeing this film makes you understand just how high the bar the Marx Brothers set for their movies, much higher than virtually any other comic working with a film studio, instead of independently as Chaplin did.Things happened in a Marx Brother film that just never happened in one with Red Skelton: Margaret Dumont being deviled by Groucho, Groucho being deviled by Chico, and the rest of the Universe bedeviled by Harpo. Out of the gate in the Cocoanuts, the Brothers' first film in 1929, we already have the "Why A Duck?" routine between Groucho and Chico. We already have Groucho's "Won't you lie down?" to Margaret Dumont, and Harpo giving Basil Ruysdael his leg while whistling a tune from the arcane musical, "Floradora." Even as we move to the later films, there is also the Marx's brilliant sense of surrealism and absurdity, far beyond the capabilities of anyone else. Their penultimate film, A Night in Casablanca, an almost last hurrah which they financed themselves and had more say over, can be arguably ranked with the lesser Paramount or best MGM films.But Store provides a disconnect which the brothers never are able to overcome. This was never something impossible for them. The plot was generally something they made their way around, jumped over, or totally jettisoned. Here, there are trapped in it, and it's not pretty.There are still some marvelous moments--how can there not be in a Marx Brothers movie? Groucho's last film appearance with Margaret Dumont is as always wonderful. Harpo has a magnificent harp solo where he turns into Mozart and his mirror reflections spring to life far more than any ever did in Duck Soup. The opening sequence where Dumont visits Groucho's fly-by-night detective agency (where Harpo is the given the Quasi-Zeppoesque role as Groucho's Assistant) is wonderful.But the lengthy Groucho musical number (three DVD chapters!) is pretty much a straight one. There's no tattooed lady, African explorer, or pre-war hysteria to be found. The juvenile's musical number, The Tenement Symphony, is nowhere as mercifully brief as When My Dreams Come True is in the Cocoanuts. Harpo and Chico even participate in it.Worst of all, however, are the moments where the brothers are made into just any old comedy team, pushing wrong buttons to create chaos, riding on roller skates and unicycles to escape the villain, and serving up a wienie with some Puccini (Or is it Rossini? My mind has blocked it out like a car accident).You don't gotta sing while you sell. Please don't.It's sad that the Marx's valedictory with MGM had to be this generic bore. Through no fault of their own, they became personae non grata at the studio and seemed to be given a script pulled at random from a file drawer.So, if you're a Red Skelton fan, and can ignore the fact you're watching Groucho, Harpo and Chico, by all means, watch The Big Store. If you're a Marx Brothers worshipper (they don't merely have fans), please show their memories respect and keep the DVD on the side that has Go West.

bkoganbing After Zeppo Marx refused to move on with his brothers to MGM from Paramount, the Marxs usually secured the services of another player, usually a singer to function in Zeppo's nondescript place. Usually that person had a lot more personality than Zeppo did. It was Allan Jones in two films, Kenny Baker in one and in The Big Store it was Tony Martin.The still very much alive, but retired Tony Martin, had one of the great voices of the last century. He never made the screen impact that other singers did, though he was in some very good films. His main media outlets were records, radio, and as one of the premier nightclub attractions, especially when he appeared with his second wife Cyd Charisse. Martin had two songs to sing in The Big Store, the much maligned Tenement Symphony and a really nice ballad, If It's You.Martin is the heir to one half of Phelps Department store. The other half is owned by his aunt Margaret Dumont. The Hastings Brothers, who own a chain of department stores, are looking to buy this one. Manager Douglass Dumbrille has been doing a little embezzling on the side and he's afraid that if Martin sells his half, he's taking a stretch up the river. After Martin becomes the victim of an attempted murder, Dumont hires who else, detective Wolf J. Flywheel who is of course Groucho Marx. By a happy coincidence, Groucho has Harpo as a sidekick and Harpo's brother in the film Chico is a friend of Martin's. So now we have all the Marx Brothers working at the store.The Big Store is usually dismissed as one of the Marx Brothers lesser films, but it's always been a favorite of mine. Another reviewer said there were too many musical numbers. I don't think there were any more or less than in other films of their's. The running time is a bit short so it might seem like there's more.The highlight for me is always the final chase seen through the store, especially since Douglass Dumbrille joins in the fun. Dumbrille on screen usually plays some serious villains, probably his best known part is that of Mr. Cedar the lawyer who is milking the estate that Gary Cooper is inheriting in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Dumbrille is just as successful dealing with the Marx Brothers over embezzlement as he is with Gary Cooper. But here this very serious and obviously classically trained actor joins right in the slapstick fun. Dumbrille looks like he's having a ball. Later on he would really cut loose in a couple of Abbott and Costello films.A question to all movie fans. Who do you think had the most inventive screen character names, W.C. Fields or Groucho Marx?