Tweet New Book: The Anatomy of Harpo Marx

From University of California Press: The Anatomy of Harpo Marx is a luxuriant, detailed play-by-play account of Harpo Marx's physical movements as captured on screen. Wayne Koestenbaum guides us through the thirteen Marx Brothers films, from The Cocoanuts in 1929 to Love Happy in 1950, to focus on Harpo's chief and yet heretofore unexplored attribute--his profound and contradictory corporeality. Koestenbaum celebrates the astonishing range of Harpo's body--its kinks, sexual multiplicities, somnolence, Jewishness, cute pathos, and more....

Oh, brother...


Jim

[Mike Gebert]

DUMONT: I'm fascinated by his corporeality!

CHICO: Atsa no corporeality, he never-a get past-a de private.

On a brighter note, Harpo's son recently wrote a charming memoir of his dad, called SON OF HARPO SPEAKS.

An interesting and quite fascinating book about Harpo is the one he wrote himself "Harpo Speaks"

From University of California Press: The Anatomy of Harpo Marx is a luxuriant, detailed play-by-play account of Harpo Marx's physical movements as captured on screen. Wayne Koestenbaum guides us through the thirteen Marx Brothers films, from The Cocoanuts in 1929 to Love Happy in 1950, to focus on Harpo's chief and yet heretofore unexplored attribute--his profound and contradictory corporeality. Koestenbaum celebrates the astonishing range of Harpo's body--its kinks, sexual multiplicities, somnolence, Jewishness, cute pathos, and more....

When the Marx Brothers were appearing in Animal Crackers on Broadway, an English critic named William Bolitho went into raptures about Harpo. He wrote of how he marvelled at the "inviolable mutism [Harpo] keeps proper to his extrahumanity, at his phantom tricks which belong to a largely incommunicable dream world." Robert Benchley, who was then a critic for the humor magazine Life, quoted this passage from Bolitho's review and added: "Harpo should know about this." In a more straightforward vein, Benchley went on to say that, in his opinion, we laugh at Harpo not because of his inviolable mutism but because he's funny.

I prefer Benchley's approach to criticism: straight, no chaser.

HONK! HONK!

From University of California Press: The Anatomy of Harpo Marx is a luxuriant, detailed play-by-play account of Harpo Marx's physical movements as captured on screen. Wayne Koestenbaum guides us through the thirteen Marx Brothers films, from The Cocoanuts in 1929 to Love Happy in 1950, to focus on Harpo's chief and yet heretofore unexplored attribute--his profound and contradictory corporeality. Koestenbaum celebrates the astonishing range of Harpo's body--its kinks, sexual multiplicities, somnolence, Jewishness, cute pathos, and more....

When the Marx Brothers were appearing in Animal Crackers on Broadway, an English critic named William Bolitho went into raptures about Harpo. He wrote of how he marvelled at the "inviolable mutism [Harpo] keeps proper to his extrahumanity, at his phantom tricks which belong to a largely incommunicable dream world." Robert Benchley, who was then a critic for the humor magazine Life, quoted this passage from Bolitho's review and added: "Harpo should know about this." In a more straightforward vein, Benchley went on to say that, in his opinion, we laugh at Harpo not because of his inviolable mutism but because he's funny.

I prefer Benchley's approach to criticism: straight, no chaser.

I tried reading William Bolitho's 1926 book MURDER FOR PROFIT. It has such promise- studies of particularly notable murders (George Joseph Smith's "Brides in the Bath" for one) but they are submerged under floods of verbiage. Bolitho does get off a few choice lines:


"General jackdaw culture, very little more than a collection of charming miscomprehensions, untargeted enthusiasms, and a general habit of skimming."

After reading extracts like this one:

PINKY
Harpo’s name in Duck Soup—Suck Dupe?—is Pinky, which refers to pink hair we can’t see as pink (the film is black-and-white) and must believe is pink, based on the word alone. The name Pinky points to Harpo’s revolutionary (antimasculine) difference from regular color. Pinky might also mean pinking shears—or the fifth, puny finger, the pianist’s bane. When other characters address Harpo as ”Pinky,” they legitimize baby talk: if they hail him as Pinky, then he must be Pinky. We say ”Pinky” if we approve of Harpo’s pink nature and wish to bless him with a diminutive. Pinky never disgusts; he is to disgust what ipecac is to Mt. Parnassus.

... my immediate reaction is, "At's-a drivel," and I'm not sure I have the stomach or the time for much more of it. As Stan Laurel said, "Life isn't short enough!"

After reading extracts like this one:

PINKY
Harpo’s name in Duck Soup—Suck Dupe?—is Pinky, which refers to pink hair we can’t see as pink (the film is black-and-white) and must believe is pink, based on the word alone. The name Pinky points to Harpo’s revolutionary (antimasculine) difference from regular color. Pinky might also mean pinking shears—or the fifth, puny finger, the pianist’s bane. When other characters address Harpo as ”Pinky,” they legitimize baby talk: if they hail him as Pinky, then he must be Pinky. We say ”Pinky” if we approve of Harpo’s pink nature and wish to bless him with a diminutive. Pinky never disgusts; he is to disgust what ipecac is to Mt. Parnassus.

... my immediate reaction is, "At's-a drivel," and I'm not sure I have the stomach or the time for much more of it. As Stan Laurel said, "Life isn't short enough!"

I'm sorry, but that is very, very funny.

PINKY
Harpo’s name in Duck Soup—Suck Dupe?—is Pinky, which refers to pink hair we can’t see as pink (the film is black-and-white) and must believe is pink, based on the word alone. The name Pinky points to Harpo’s revolutionary (antimasculine) difference from regular color. Pinky might also mean pinking shears—or the fifth, puny finger, the pianist’s bane. When other characters address Harpo as ”Pinky,” they legitimize baby talk: if they hail him as Pinky, then he must be Pinky. We say ”Pinky” if we approve of Harpo’s pink nature and wish to bless him with a diminutive. Pinky never disgusts; he is to disgust what ipecac is to Mt. Parnassus.

I may vomit (ipecac or no).

After reading extracts like this one:

PINKY
Harpo’s name in Duck Soup—Suck Dupe?—is Pinky, which refers to pink hair we can’t see as pink (the film is black-and-white) and must believe is pink, based on the word alone. The name Pinky points to Harpo’s revolutionary (antimasculine) difference from regular color. Pinky might also mean pinking shears—or the fifth, puny finger, the pianist’s bane. When other characters address Harpo as ”Pinky,” they legitimize baby talk: if they hail him as Pinky, then he must be Pinky. We say ”Pinky” if we approve of Harpo’s pink nature and wish to bless him with a diminutive. Pinky never disgusts; he is to disgust what ipecac is to Mt. Parnassus.

Though I hesitate to criticize a person's hard work based on but a single paragraph, the author's egregious omission of foxhunting attire and the famous eatery on Melrose Avenue fairly makes my fingernails leap from their beds in anticipation of horrors yet to come.

And what is with the Spoonerizing of Marx Bros movie titles? Bunkey Mizness? Force Heathers? What can this possibly signify?

Meats be

Harpo seemingly beat his brothers to Paramount. His first film or at least feature lenght film was in a surviving Richard Dix Paramount silent TOO MANY KISSES(1925). Without further adieu, Harpo Marx:
http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/T/To ... s1925.html

Harpo seemingly beat his brothers to Paramount. His first film or at least feature lenght film was in a surviving Richard Dix Paramount silent TOO MANY KISSES(1925).

Harpo beat Zeppo only by three months - the same year saw Zeppo's appearance in A Kiss in the Dark (1925). There's been some slight controversy among Marxists as to whether Zeppo really was in that film, but there's enough evidence in the form of ads and, more importantly, reviews, to convince me that he was. How big or small a part we can't tell until a copy shows up, but it seems to have been some sort of guest turn.

http://www.marx-brothers.org/marxology/kiss.htm

An excerpt of Harpo's appearance in Too Many Kisses was included in the documentary The Unknown Marx Brothers - "the only time Harpo ever 'spoke' on the screen". Also appearing: William Powell and Richard Dix.

There's something fishy about this clip.

Harpo wore a red wig on stage. He didn't change it to a blond one until the tests for the first Brothers film indicated that the red colour didn't work on black and white film (it looked like real hair, or something).

So why in this clip is he wearing the almost platinum-blond wig that he didn't wear in a Brothers film until much later?

Jim

So why in this clip is he wearing the almost platinum-blond wig that he didn't wear in a Brothers film until much later?

This has to be pure speculation on my part: maybe he chose a blond wig for this film in order to emphasize that he was not playing his regular "Harpo" of the Marx Brothers, but a different (though apparently not entirely dissimilar) character.

To me the wig here also looks somewhat different than his "Harpo" wigs, red or blond - it's smaller and not quite so wild and unruly.

After reading extracts like this one:

PINKY
Harpo’s name in Duck Soup—Suck Dupe?—is Pinky, which refers to pink hair we can’t see as pink (the film is black-and-white) and must believe is pink, based on the word alone. The name Pinky points to Harpo’s revolutionary (antimasculine) difference from regular color. Pinky might also mean pinking shears—or the fifth, puny finger, the pianist’s bane. When other characters address Harpo as ”Pinky,” they legitimize baby talk: if they hail him as Pinky, then he must be Pinky. We say ”Pinky” if we approve of Harpo’s pink nature and wish to bless him with a diminutive. Pinky never disgusts; he is to disgust what ipecac is to Mt. Parnassus.

This would be the one occasion that Chico interprets for Harpo "he's a-glad because he can't read."

Harpo grateful he cannot read this book.jpg (16.89 KiB) Viewed 1874 times

Here's a choice quote. The author ponders, "Must I prove that Harpo demonstrates masturbatory virtues, or that his sexuality is rudimentary?" That does it! Back to the library!

Here's a choice quote. The author ponders, "Must I prove that Harpo demonstrates masturbatory virtues, or that is sexuality is rudimentary?" That does it! Back to the library!

Ummm, I'd say that author of this dreck is the wanker.

Here's a choice quote. The author ponders, "Must I prove that Harpo demonstrates masturbatory virtues, or that his sexuality is rudimentary?" That does it! Back to the library!

And I thought I had it tough reading cranky old Welford Beaton. At least he was right now and again. When I read sentences like this, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This poor fellow thinks more about Harpo's body than Susan Fleming ever did.

Given that Harpo slept with a horse, spent time in a cocoanut tree with a monkey, lived with a penguin costumed like himself, straddled an ostrich and hugged & kissed a calf, one can just imagine the other conclusions this author came up with...

Given that Harpo slept with a horse, spent time in a cocoanut tree with a monkey, lived with a penguin costumed like himself, straddled an ostrich and hugged & kissed a calf, one can just imagine the other conclusions this author came up with...

The one conclusion NOT considered or discussed is that Harpo was a comedian acting out funny bits to make people laugh.

Given that Harpo slept with a horse, spent time in a cocoanut tree with a monkey, lived with a penguin costumed like himself, straddled an ostrich and hugged & kissed a calf, one can just imagine the other conclusions this author came up with...

The one conclusion NOT considered or discussed is that Harpo was a comedian acting out funny bits to make people laugh.

Hey, why bother when one can give their psychosexual fantasies free rein?

Nice going Farr!
Now you've ruined my Master's Thesis on why Harpo's rudimentary being co-exists with the essential fabric of the Universe.

And I thought it had to do with peanuts.....

Harpo seemingly beat his brothers to Paramount. His first film or at least feature lenght film was in a surviving Richard Dix Paramount silent TOO MANY KISSES(1925).

Harpo beat Zeppo only by three months - the same year saw Zeppo's appearance in A Kiss in the Dark (1925). There's been some slight controversy among Marxists as to whether Zeppo really was in that film, but there's enough evidence in the form of ads and, more importantly, reviews, to convince me that he was. How big or small a part we can't tell until a copy shows up, but it seems to have been some sort of guest turn.

Actually, Harpo doesn't beat Zeppo at anything, because Zeppo can be spotted as an extra in TOO MANY KISSES as well.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

I may vomit .

Thank you Sheridan Whiteside.

Actually, Harpo doesn't beat Zeppo at anything, because Zeppo can be spotted as an extra in TOO MANY KISSES as well.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

That's actually John Wayne.

Where is this sighting within the film?

Actually, Harpo doesn't beat Zeppo at anything, because Zeppo can be spotted as an extra in TOO MANY KISSES as well.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

That's actually John Wayne.

You lie. It's Milton Berle.


Jim

Zeppo can be spotted as an extra in TOO MANY KISSES as well.

Thanks for that fascinating tidbit. Zeppo's appearance is certainly a well-hidden fact, even among Marx scholars. I at least have never seen any reference to this.

Then of course, Too Many Kisses itself is much too well-hidden! While we're waiting for it to become more available, you wouldn't happen to have a frame blow-up handy, showing a recognizable Zeppo?