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Pranking the Boss
Mar. 12th, 2009 10:21 amEver see _A Night at the Opera_? If not, go do it now. I'll wait...
Okay. This was the first movie made by the Marx Brothers at MGM after leaving Paramount. While many fans of their older works deride it as changing the Brothers from total anarchists to merry pranksters with hearts of gold, before the change even the Brothers were concerned they were going stale. The move revitalized their careers and resulted in one of the best movies (not just one of the best comedies) of all time. And you can thank Irving Thalberg.
Thalberg was a _wunderkind_, a genius and a perfectionist. He was also notorious for being late for meetings. Not long after MGM "acquired" the Marx Brothers (Yeah, right. Who got whom? :-) he scheduled meetings with them, to discus their future work. And then wouldn't show for hours.
Now, most people were so intimidated by Thalberg they put up with this. Not the Marxes. They gave fair warning after being stood up once by pushing filing cabinets against the doors from the inside and climbing out a window. When Thalberg was late again, he arrived to find the Brothers sitting around a a roaring fire in his office fireplace, roasting potatoes. (Various accounts differ on how much clothing they had shed.)
Thalberg loved it. Most people were too intimidated to be anything but serious around him, but it's difficult to imagine Groucho, Harpo and Chico being intimidated by anyone. He sent to the commissary for butter, sat down and asked for a potato. And was never late for another meeting with them.
Thalberg instituted more order in the movies of the Brothers. Some say this diluted their manic talent; others that it channeled this in new and better directions. Yet proponents of both positions agree that _Opera_ is a wonderful movie.
Unfortunately, Thalberg died tragically young, and his successors didn't really know how to handle the Marx Brothers. But we'll always have _A Night at the Opera_.
Okay. This was the first movie made by the Marx Brothers at MGM after leaving Paramount. While many fans of their older works deride it as changing the Brothers from total anarchists to merry pranksters with hearts of gold, before the change even the Brothers were concerned they were going stale. The move revitalized their careers and resulted in one of the best movies (not just one of the best comedies) of all time. And you can thank Irving Thalberg.
Thalberg was a _wunderkind_, a genius and a perfectionist. He was also notorious for being late for meetings. Not long after MGM "acquired" the Marx Brothers (Yeah, right. Who got whom? :-) he scheduled meetings with them, to discus their future work. And then wouldn't show for hours.
Now, most people were so intimidated by Thalberg they put up with this. Not the Marxes. They gave fair warning after being stood up once by pushing filing cabinets against the doors from the inside and climbing out a window. When Thalberg was late again, he arrived to find the Brothers sitting around a a roaring fire in his office fireplace, roasting potatoes. (Various accounts differ on how much clothing they had shed.)
Thalberg loved it. Most people were too intimidated to be anything but serious around him, but it's difficult to imagine Groucho, Harpo and Chico being intimidated by anyone. He sent to the commissary for butter, sat down and asked for a potato. And was never late for another meeting with them.
Thalberg instituted more order in the movies of the Brothers. Some say this diluted their manic talent; others that it channeled this in new and better directions. Yet proponents of both positions agree that _Opera_ is a wonderful movie.
Unfortunately, Thalberg died tragically young, and his successors didn't really know how to handle the Marx Brothers. But we'll always have _A Night at the Opera_.
