THE CINEMA
" The Marx Brothers Go West." At the Empire Four Mothers." At the Warner Theatre.—" Married But Single." At the Regal.
FOR many years a whole world of humour has been epitomised for me in one four-word sentence. It was spoken by a little man in a barrel—a ship's stowaway who with three companions was threatened by an approaching search-party. The sailors were about to turn towards their hidden prey and all seemed lost. Then, while the eyes of the searchers were still occupied in an adjacent corner of the ship's hold, a barrel-lid was swiftly raised from within and a moustachioed face momentarily appeared to crack out a word of command: " Never mind the barrels! " The sailors, hearing a voice of authority, turned away from the quarry ; the barrels remained uninvestigated, and the Marx Brothers once more were saved in the nick of time by the generalship of Grouch() and by a phrase which, unfunny in itself, somehow represents the curious anarchy of their humour. This happened, I believe, in Monkey Business, but perhaps it was another of their early films, because Marx Brothers' titles ordinarily furnish only the slenderest clues to subject-matter. • This week the Brothers are unusually communicative in announcing The Marx Brothers Go West, but otherwise tradition is strictly observed. It is still Groucho who delivers them from disaster, whether it threatens in the stage-coach or the saloon, in the boudoir or on the foot-plate. They go to seek their fortunes in Dead Man's Gulch, and though the prestidigitation of Harpo has its successes amongst both Redskins and gunmen, it is upon the ready ton of Groucho that the fortunes of the day's entertainment people ople Most that has ever justly been said in blame or praise of a hl. Brothers' film remains true of this. The y whose romance the trio minister are perhaps less obtrusive th usual, yet Margaret Dumont, that statuesque rock against whi the storm of neo-Marxian ideology was wont to break, is ag absent. There are times when such magic words as surrealis and commedia del arte are invoked to explain the curious achieve ments of Harpo and Chico. - Yet I still believe that it is Grouch who provides the inspiration for the three of them, and that it the spirit of " never mind the barrels " which informs th ' philosophy.
The Four Daughters who became Four Wives are now F Mothers. Unless you follow regularly the somewhat repetitio adventures of the Lane Sisters, Gale Page, Claude Rains, Ma Robson and- all the nice young men as the music-loving Lem family, you will have some difficulty in discovering who is married to whom and whose baby is which. But you can see that the are one big happy family sharing joy and sorrow and then jo once more, and it is entirely due to their common devotion to th great American institution of the screen-family that the old h is not sold up after all.
There is no doubt that the Lemps would take a poor view Married but Single, the film which the L.C.C. suspended fa investigation. It is a cross between the crazy style of domesti comedy inaugurated by William Powell and Myrna Loy and bedroom-farce. Most of the action-is outside the bedroom, bu ideologically the film never leaves it. It is delighfully acted a first-rate cast headed by Melvyn Douglas and Rosalind Russell the situations are really funny and the dialogue a joy. If it were not an obvious impossibility in a bunch of releases which includes the Marx Brothers I could have sworn this was the week's
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