At the Circus

Jeff Wilson owns a small circus and owes his partner Carter ten thousand dollars. He will pay it; the night he does, the money is stolen from the safe. The lawyer Loophole steps in. There is a strongman at the circus, a small man, a horse trainer and a woman with a secret nobody knows. Loophole questions everyone, gets into the sleeping cars, walks about the circus and finds nothing. In the end one course remains: to set the circus up in a rich woman's garden and put the show on there. Edward Buzzell directs. Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kenny Baker and Margaret Dumont are in the cast. It is an American production. The film is one of the productions the Marx brothers made in their MGM period. The song Groucho sings about a tattooed woman is its best known passage and he sang it often on stage afterwards. The narrative sets up a plot, but its real purpose is to link the routines together. The matter it treats is swindling; every character is trying to trick another. Harpo's harp section and Chico's piano section, the usual stops in the series, are here as well. The film keeps the shape of the run with the scenes built against Margaret Dumont. The closing sequence leaves an orchestra on a platform floating out to sea. The narrative stops at times and the musical numbers slow it down. Its limit is structure; the plot is weak, the rhythm uneven, and it is tamer than the brothers' earlier films. Who it is for: viewers who like classic American comedy and the Marx brothers. Who it is not for: it is dated, scattered, and the ending simple.