In his long career from the Vaudeville circuits to
Carnegie Hall, he was known by many names:
Captain Spaulding, Dr. Hackenbush, President Firefly. . . but none
were more famous than the stage name he adopted for himself. . . Groucho.
Groucho himself wrote several autobiographical works, although it was
not always possible to tell when he was relating the truth and when he was
telling a good story. Many
others, ranging from his son, Arthur, to his friends and colleagues have
also turned their attention to documenting his life on the screen and off.
The most recent foray into this world is Stefan Kanfer’s Groucho:
The Life and Times of Julius
Henry Marx.
Kanfer traces Groucho world from his grandparents’
and parents’ decisions to come to the United States, through his childhood
and his failures and successes at show business.
He is at his best when relating the stage and screen antics of
the comedian, but also examines the relationship Groucho had with his
family. Here, however, Kanfer
falls short. Frequently
noting that Groucho and Harpo were reasonably close but Chico’s
irresponsible was distancing, Kanfer focuses on Groucho’s relationship
with his mother, Minnie, practically ignoring any relationship with the
other two brothers, Gummo and Zeppo and dismissing Groucho’s relationship
with his father, Frenchy, as loving but lacking in respect.
Kanfer’s description of the brothers’ antics in the
stage version of Cocoanuts leaves the reader imagining this classic Marx
Brothers shtick which never managed to be recorded on film and lamenting its
loss. With the success of
“Cocoanuts,” Kanfer depicts Groucho as fusing his stage persona and his
real life personality. However,
Kanfer has not really shown what Groucho was like off-stage to this point
and the reader is left wondering how much of the change (if any) was caused
by the change in circumstances in which Groucho found himself rather than in
his personality.
In his dealings with women, Groucho was less than
admirable. The
anti-authoritarian streak which appears in his films seems to have been
targeted at his domineering mother, Minnie.
When he was off-stage, he had a tendency to direct that same
animosity towards any woman who got close to him, most especially his wives. The only woman who was not a direct target seems to have been
Minnie, herself, whom Groucho had elevated to a type of sainthood.
Many of the anecdotes Kanfer relates have previously
appeared in the memoirs written by the various brothers and their children,
however, Kanfer includes them in a broader portrayal of his subject.
Nevertheless, Groucho as a person never is fully realized in
Kanfer’s book, and the only insight the reader receives is that
Groucho’s personality was formed by Minnie and enhanced by the stock
market crash of 1929.
Unfortunately, Kanfer spends too much time quoting
extensively from the films, sometimes including pages of quotes without any
original or explanatory materials. Just
as he points out the Marx Brothers’ materials worked best when they could
be seen, rather than heard over the radio, so, too, do they fall flat when
they appear in black and white on a printed page without the actors’
inflections, props and antics. Even
when not quoting from the films, Kanfer provides an in depth summary of each
of the films which allow his personal biases to show through concerning the
relative merits of the films. To
quote Clive Barnes’s New York Times review of the play
“Minnie’s Boys,” which Kanfer quotes, the book “at its best has you
looking back fondly upon the old movies.
You would be better at home watching the old movies.”
Kanfer is at his
weakest when defining Groucho’s relationships with his relatives, wives,
and friends. This problem
becomes worse as Groucho’s success increases.
Although Kanfer spends a lot of time discussing how “You Bet Your
Life” was created, he hardly describes the problems which were destroying
Groucho’s second marriage to Kay at the same time, merely indicating that
they were having some problems. None
of Groucho’s wives come across as having any real personality, nor does
the reader come away with any understanding of why Groucho married any of
them. The only insight Kanfer has to Groucho’s relationship to
women is that they are all tainted by his desire to break away from
Minnie’s constraints by demeaning and browbeating any woman who came into
his life, whether friend, wife or child.
Kanfer’s attempt to explain Groucho as disdaining the weak, rather
than women, doesn’t quite ring true.
Groucho:
The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx
is an enjoyable book, but for a Marx Brothers fan is mostly a regurgitation
of stories and incidents which are already known.
For the more casual reader, they will learn much about the Marx
Brothers, but little about Groucho the person, except for the disconcerting
feeling that Groucho did not, perhaps could not, exist apart from his stage
persona. However, Kanfer is
unwilling to focus on Groucho as an individual away from his screen persona.
Even after Groucho has managed to put the greasepaint moustache
behind him, Kanfer still defines him by his professional role on “You Bet
Your Life.”
