Duck Soup…

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

Someone I know (not a child of five) posted this poster on FaceBook this morning and for a moment it almost made me smile. Actually I did smile, not too much and not for long, but it certainly prompted me to comment: “I want to live in a Marx Brothers film”. What wacky  mayhem fun that would be. After all, humour is reason gone mad and it’d be quite an exclusive club I imagine. Mind you, I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

It took me a while to work out that the duck who looks like a duck is meant to be Zeppo, even longer to remember the name of the fifth brother, Guppo, and me such a Marx Brothers fan.

Marx Brothers fan? Thinking about it, I don't think I’ve ever watched a Marx Brothers film from beginning to end. Oh, I’ve started to watch them, dipped in halfway through, but I’m not at all sure that I’ve sat engrossed, watching one cover-to-cover. Talking of books, outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

For me, Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera, Horse Feathers, Monkey Business, even Duck Soup are really just a mish-mash of Groucho’s cigar, Harpo’s harp and Zeppo’s hilariously unfunny hat. A single film where plain old ladies - I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception - fall in love with Groucho and Harpo honks his horn because he’s a deaf-mute (Honk-Honk and not really – how un-PC is that!)

Even so, it seems that I’m something of an aficionado in my mind despite not really knowing very much about their films at all. Interesting… It leads me to question if I’ve ever really watched Frankenstein, Casablanca or Citizen Kane? Did I ever see Basil Rathbone solve a single mystery as Sherlock Holmes? All that late night television wasted. I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns a set on I go into the other room and read a book.

I wonder how many movies I think I’ve watched when I haven’t really watched them at all? I wonder how much of my life is what I think I’ve done rather than what I’ve actually done. Movies? Who told you I was in the movies? Watch me carefully, I hardly move at all. Life? The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

A legend in my own lunchtime? Well art is art isn’t it? Still, on the other hand water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste very much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now tell me what you know.

What I know?

Oh well, I’ve had a wonderful time, but this wasn’t it. I really must watch Duck Soup.