Relentlessly comical and outrageous musical comedy that still works very well . The first to follow ¨A night at the Opera¨, their biggest success and use a variation on its formula . Amusing and entertaining Marx Brothers picture , it has a lot of funny material and unfortunately intrusive songs . Groucho's wisecracks and the incomparable Chico and Harpo carry the movie . It deals with a sly veterinary named Dr. Hugo Hackenbush (Groucho Marx) who is illegally employed as the sanitarium director and other wacky friends , as Tony (Chico) , a helper at the sanitarium and Stuffy (Harpo) , a jockey previously employed by the nasty Morgan (Douglass Dumbrille) . All of them betting a horse race to save from the financial ruin . Along with Gil (Allan Jones as a singer) who has invested all his money in Hi Hat , a race horse and Judy (Maureen O'Sullivan) owns the bankrupted sanitarium and she has hopes they will win enough to pay off the debts . Meantime , town villain Morgan has his sights set on taking over Judy's sanitarium and turning it into a casino by attempting to prevent the horse from getting onto the race track . Later on , Marx Brothers anarchize the racecourse , cheating and mocking the riders , while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies .
Classic Marx film with many funny sequences , this is the most sustained bit of insanity , full of crazy gags , antics and amusement , being now deemed a satiric masterpiece and one of the biggest hits . Though not as mercilessly hilarious and outrageous as the movies they played at Paramount with Zeppo , it results to be , nonetheless , an agreeable movie . The Marx Brothers were still at the peak of their fame in this MGM musical/comedy. Although it suffers from staginess and musical comedy plotting , and extremely overlong , but gives the zany threesome plenty of comic elaboration . It works very well , which , unfortunately and sadly , did not prove to be the case with most of the Marx Brothers pictures that went on . Enough gags for give several movies , but our favorite is still the horse race at hippodrome . Despite the abundant songs and silly as well as sappy love story the movie maintains itself very well . Excellent Harpo Marx , as usual , he even did many of his own stunts , he later said it was a silly thing for a 47-year-old non-stuntman to have done . Groucho said that this was his favorite among his movies . The Marx Bros (minus Zeppo) are in peak form in this vintage musical comedy with co-star the legendary Margaret Dumont , an obligatory appearance here playing a wealthy hypochondriac who might also save the sanitarium, including sparkling dialogs and dances with Groucho . Furthermore , Sig Ruman makes his second of three appearances in The Marx Brothers films. However , this is the second Marx Brothers film made without brother Zeppo Marx, it started a new trend of The Marx Brothers movies featuring a Zeppo-like supporting character who carries the love story and sings the song . This is a M.G.M production lavishly financed by Max Siegel and Irving Thalberg. The motion picture was well directed by Sam Wood . Sam Wood, freshman The Marx Brothers director in this film, was a perfectionist filming very charming scenes . Don't miss it , one of the funniest picture ever made by Marx Brothers.
Other important films starred by Marx Brothers -many of them Broadway farce plays transfered by scenarists into vehicle for the Brothers- , they are the following ones : ¨Animal crackers¨, ¨Duck soap¨ that was a flop when first released but today considered a masterpiece , ¨Horse Feathers¨, ¨At the circus¨, ¨A night at the Opera¨,¨Day at the races¨ , ¨Room service¨ , ¨Go West¨, ¨Love Happy¨ and ¨Night in Casablanca¨, though in 1946 the Marx formula was weak and wearing thin. Any film with Groucho , Chico , Harpo and Zeppo is well worth seeing .
