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4.0 out of 5 stars
"It's just like a movie!", Jun 12 2004
The Marx Brothers' GO WEST (1940) shares its title with a Buster Keaton film from 1925. And both films start with a caption card containing Horace Greeley's famous quotation: "Go west, young man, go west." This wouldn't be the only moment in the film when I was reminded of Buster Keaton. The goofy train sequence at the movie's conclusion seems to be at least inspired by some of The Great Stone Face's exploits. Of course, one major positive in Keaton's favor was that his movie didn't have any singing in it. But the most important similarity between the two films is that I liked them both.GO WEST is a definite improvement on their previous two films, the average AT THE CIRCUS and the unfortunate ROOM SERVICE. The writing (in particular the one-liners) seems much sharper and wittier. The sequence of Chico and Harpo fleecing Groucho at the train station seems reminiscent of the more famous "Tootsie Frootsie ice cream" scene in A DAY AT THE RACES, but manages to draw laughs without simply recycling the same gags. Somewhat surprisingly (given that this is set in the Wild West), there isn't too much parodying of Western standard set pieces (apart from one or two gags). This is a Marx Brothers film that just happens to be set in the Wild West, rather than one specifically making fun of Westerns. As for the plot that all these jokes are existing in... Well, I don't think of myself as particularly slow, but this is the first time I've ever had trouble following the storyline of a Marx Brothers film. The overall story is fairly simple (a railroad company wants to buy a piece of real estate for a stupid amount of money), yet the particulars eluded me. I just couldn't keep track of the specifics of the bad guys' plan. Now, the reason I had trouble keeping track of the plot is actually a good one for a Marx Brothers film. There isn't enough time devoted to the storyline for it to actually make much sense. This, of course, isn't a bad thing, because the worst part of the Brothers' films (apart from many of the musical interludes that didn't feature Groucho, Harpo or Chico) was the endless romantic subplots. Fortunately, there's a relatively small amount of screen time that goes into non-Marx scenes, which is bad for figuring out what's going on, but great for anyone who is looking for entertainment and jokes (which, really, should be everyone). I found GO WEST to be a very pleasant and welcome surprise. The reputation of their later MGM pictures is shaky to say the least, but this is a lot of fun. The gags are clever and funny, while the songs from the fake-Zeppo and the female romantic lead aren't intrusive (indeed Groucho's backing vocals on one of them is surprisingly good). This is definitely a highlight from the Marx Brothers' later movie career.
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