A Day at the Races

"Sanitarium?" "No, racetrack." The institution is on the verge of ruin, the wealthy hypochondriac (Margaret Dumont) summons Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (Groucho), veterinarian extraordinaire. (Golf ball-sized pills are his forte: "Last patient I gave one of these to won the Kentucky Derby.") The chauffeur (Chico) works the betting windows, his tootsie-frootsie ice-cream cart overflows with tips. "One dollar, and you'll remember me all your life." "That's the most nauseating proposition I've ever had." All hopes rest on the spooked steeplechaser whose jockey (Harpo) munches on thermometers and burps up balloons. Ingénue (Maureen O'Sullivan) and tenor (Allan Jones) are duly included. "Who are you gonna believe, me or those crooked x-rays?" Sam Wood is again a peculiar choice for Marxian chaos, nevertheless his polished sturdiness makes a proper scrim for the dervishes to poke through. (The MGM touch is mainly felt in Jones' number aboard a lavish gondola, the massive fountain behind him dissipates to reveal hordes of chorines and Vivien Fay the human spinning top.) Groucho has his hands full on the dance floor with the blonde giantess (Esther Muir), elsewhere the grand piano tickled by Chico is demolished by Harpo, who plucks the strings of the wreckage. The mattress is stabbed for hay for the hungry horse in the closet, wallpaper is plastered over the amorous couple on the couch. "Why, I've never been so insulted in my life!" "Well, it's early yet." Freud is taken account of with Sig Ruman's Viennese professor ("Don't point that beard at me. It might go off"), the angel Gabriel occasions a jumpin' stable jazz wingding for the benefit of Cabin in the Sky. The capper is a soiled finish line, "I haven't seen so much mud-slinging since the last election." With Douglass Dumbrille, Leonard Ceeley, Robert Middlemass, and Ivie Anderson. In black and white.