The Big Store

The Big Store is not one of the Marx Brothers' best films, but it's worth watching once. Groucho still delivers a few good one-liners and insults to Margaret Dumont. Harpo and Chico have some good scenes (watch as an Italian immigrant accuses Chico of mocking his accent!). I actually think that the musical numbers in this one are wonderful, except for those by Tony Rogers, one of the many love interest duds who grace the Brothers' flicks. Maltin's right: The Tenement Symphony is a suicide-inducing number, and easily a low point in all of the Marx Brothers' films, except for the entire running time of Love Happy. But there's a great song and dance number when Groucho first enters the store. You have to catch the woman singing a jazzed-up version of Rock-a-bye Baby; I have never seen a more eerily emotionless visage on a human being. It's creepy and oddly beautiful. Chico and Harpo perform an awesome piano duet. There's also a scene where four young kids play the piano like Chico, which is very charming. And Harpo's harp sequence is pretty good (he plays Mozart on the harp, and then his two reflections accompany him with other, various string instruments). The final chase sequence is rather annoying. The Marx Brothers' fall came about when their films started overutilizing special effects, fast motion, and sound effects to enhance the comedy. Still, The Big Store is not a disaster, by any means. 7/10.

This latter Marx Bros. comedy still contains some vintage moments between Groucho and his longtime foil Margaret Dumont, with good comic dialogue written for Groucho once again. The scene where she visits his office to hire him as a detective, as he and Harpo pull off a ruse by making it appear that Groucho's not a starving nobody but a first-class private eye, is as good as anything I've seen in their other pictures.

Things get bogged down later with musical numbers (I mean, what else is new?), but I was impressed by many of the sets in the grand department store.

Some good, some not-so-good.

By 1941, Groucho didn't want to make any more movies. The Brothers continued to do so just to keep oldest Brother Chico afloat, due to his gambling habits.

Someone commented earlier about Virginia O'Brien, the deadpan singer in the "rockabye" sequence. The deadpan delivery was her "shtick", and predated a similar approach taken by Keely Smith some years later. Legend has it that the first time a spotlight fell on Ms. O'Brien for an on-stage solo, she froze, an delivered her song with a pre-Botox facial paralysis. The audience thought it was part of the act and roared approvingly with laughter. From then on, Ms. O'Brien sang no other way. (She also sings a few bars of the Jerome Kern song, "A Fine Romance" in the semi-bio, "'Til The Clouds Roll By".) The big store is best remembered (and viewed) for the rousing "Sing While You Sell" piece about 38 minutes into the movie.

The Big Store is a Marx brothers movie from 1941.The plot is irrelevant as it is in any other Marx movie.All that makes any difference is how funny these movies are and I can tell you about this one; IT IS.This time the brothers go crazy in a department store.Groucho plays Wolf J. Flywheel, the private eye, Harpo is Wacky, his silent partner and Chico is Ravelli, the bodyguard of the singer Tommy Rogers (Tony Martin).The amazing Margaret Dumont makes her last appearance with the Marx brothers playing Martha Phelps.It was most hilarious in all those movies to watch Groucho court Margaret and at the same time humiliate her the worst way.She didn't seem to mind.The Big Store is an underrated gem that shouldn't be thrown away.There are lots of scenes that raise this movie higher than many modern movies would deserve to be raised.It's incredible to watch the brothers roller skating in the store.There are also some musical numbers in the movie.It's great to watch and listen to Groucho singing "Sing While You Sell".There's the lady (Virginia O'Brien) singing "Rock-A-Bye Baby with a frozen face.I just loved her! Chico and Harpo playing piano together is just hilarious! Harpo playing his beloved harp with the mirror reflections is just magical! I'm just reading Harpo Marx' autobiography "Harpo Speaks!".It's fascinating to read how these brothers grew up in poverty under the wings of Minnie and Frenchie and became the comedy team everybody loves.These brothers worked great as a team.The viewer can sense that.That's probably why we still love them.It's timeless, their humor.You can live the 1940's or whatever decade or millennium, it always works.If somebody woke them up now and they'd be back in the moving pictures, the movie theaters would be packed with people.And the laughter would be heard miles away.

After Zeppo Marx refused to move on with his brothers to MGM from Paramount, the Marxs usually secured the services of another player, usually a singer to function in Zeppo's nondescript place. Usually that person had a lot more personality than Zeppo did. It was Allan Jones in two films, Kenny Baker in one and in The Big Store it was Tony Martin.

The still very much alive, but retired Tony Martin, had one of the great voices of the last century. He never made the screen impact that other singers did, though he was in some very good films. His main media outlets were records, radio, and as one of the premier nightclub attractions, especially when he appeared with his second wife Cyd Charisse. Martin had two songs to sing in The Big Store, the much maligned Tenement Symphony and a really nice ballad, If It's You.

Martin is the heir to one half of Phelps Department store. The other half is owned by his aunt Margaret Dumont. The Hastings Brothers, who own a chain of department stores, are looking to buy this one.

Manager Douglass Dumbrille has been doing a little embezzling on the side and he's afraid that if Martin sells his half, he's taking a stretch up the river. After Martin becomes the victim of an attempted murder, Dumont hires who else, detective Wolf J. Flywheel who is of course Groucho Marx.

By a happy coincidence, Groucho has Harpo as a sidekick and Harpo's brother in the film Chico is a friend of Martin's. So now we have all the Marx Brothers working at the store.

The Big Store is usually dismissed as one of the Marx Brothers lesser films, but it's always been a favorite of mine. Another reviewer said there were too many musical numbers. I don't think there were any more or less than in other films of their's. The running time is a bit short so it might seem like there's more.

The highlight for me is always the final chase seen through the store, especially since Douglass Dumbrille joins in the fun. Dumbrille on screen usually plays some serious villains, probably his best known part is that of Mr. Cedar the lawyer who is milking the estate that Gary Cooper is inheriting in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

Dumbrille is just as successful dealing with the Marx Brothers over embezzlement as he is with Gary Cooper. But here this very serious and obviously classically trained actor joins right in the slapstick fun. Dumbrille looks like he's having a ball. Later on he would really cut loose in a couple of Abbott and Costello films.

A question to all movie fans. Who do you think had the most inventive screen character names, W.C. Fields or Groucho Marx?