The Cocoanuts Reduction - 75 minutes
The Public Domain introduced the first Marx Brothers film, The Cocoanuts, into its arms this year. The 1929 early talkie is best taken in comparison to other films from Paramount, notably Follow Through, that were essentially filmed records of the stage success.
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| "Hey, hey! That's only for long distances." |
What has always stood out for me is how the brothers, while uncomfortable in the new medium for this first outing, seem far less forced in their performances than others making the transition. In Follow Through, Jack Haley and Zelma O'Neal seem to be arching themselves to the overhead microphone ("You Belong to Me") or playing to an invisible back row ("I Want to be Bad"). The Marxes seem aware of their staging but are more comfortable in their own skins - the conversations are more directed to each other than to someone off-camera (although Groucho has several glances at the camera just to check where things are going). Follow Through is online, in two-strip Technicolor, in all its contrived plot line splendor - Follow Through - 1930 - youtube
What didn't age well in The Cocoanuts is the subplot. Oscar Shaw is hardly a youthful love interest, and Mary Eaton's voice is shrill even for 1920's musical tastes (they were an apparent "pair" at the time on stage). Their presence, along with their stilted non-comic lines, really drag the film into curio status.
So I committed heresy - I started cutting. Trimming. Peeling out about a reel's worth from the original film.
What couldn't really be helped was the absolutely feeble concluding scene, where the plot is all resolved, and Mary Eaton peels out yet another rendition of When My Dreams Come True. Even with the edits, even with the removal of flubbed lines, the faults in the structure of that segment can't be masked - they can only be made shorter. And just where did Polly get those two copies of the mysterious maps to Cocoanut Grove?
I found a 1926 Victor recording of "Gems from The Cocoanuts" in my audio archives, and it includes some music that didn't make the journey to the filmed version, so I took liberty to play with the opening montage, the Lovely Land Called Florida segment, and the closing reprise of Dreams Come True by replacing the final song with A Little Bungalow.
What remains is a brisk 75 minute version of The Cocoanuts, retaining the repeated confusion of whether Groucho's missed train is the 4:15 or the 4:30, but removing many of the distractions from the brothers' scenes. It makes their first film a logical prelude to their characters in Monkey Business, even if it doesn't completely lay the groundwork for their second film, the classic Animal Crackers (which will go into Public Domain in 2026, with the benefit of added clips that were discovered in an uncensored British print just a few years ago).
I have always found it interesting that it took so long for film producers to understand that the purpose of the chorus lines and the love interests was just to allow the Marxes the chance to rest between their dynamic scenes and reset the stage behind the curtain. In film, you can just cut, and the sweat equity is already taken care of. Bob Gassel of the Marx Brothers Council Podcast, - Link to that site here - a genius at creating lost continuity, did just that a few years ago, in his "Paramount edits" of their MGM films, where the potently flawed At the Circus and The Big Store were both trimmed to a fairly palatable 45 minutes.
Think what you may, The Cocoanuts is my current favorite tasty treat in this truncated form:
The Cocoanuts Reduction on Vimeo
And, while I was at it, I thought their "final" film could have some uninvited attention, too (it entered the public domain several years ago):
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