GIRAFFES ON HORSEBACK SALAD

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

In 1937, Salvador Dalí and Harpo Marx, who had become friends based on Dalí’s appreciation for the Marx Brothers, pitched a movie idea to Louis B. Mayer for the Brothers. Mayer, who was no fan, rejected the idea and the film was never made. For years, Marx Brothers fans were aware of this potential film, Giraffes on Horseback Salad, but with little real information about it. Josh Frank began to look into the records of the Marx Brothers, Salvador Dalí, and the Centre Pompidou and pieced together the story behind the failed movie, as well as the story of the movie, itself. The resulting book is the graphic novel, Giraffes on Horseback Salad, written with Tim Heidecker and illustrated by Manuela Pertega.

Frank provides the background for the graphic novel, not only discussing his attempt to track down as much information as possible, and the limitations of the information that was created in support of the potential script, but also giving the background of Dalí’s career up to that point. Dalí’s friendship with Harpo Marx was strange and brief, and when it didn’t lead to the desired script, Dalí moved on with other projects, leaving only bits and pieces of Giraffes on Horseback Salad in disparate places.

The graphic novel portion of the book attempts to create a visual representation of the film that might have resulted, based on Dalí’s notes, partial screenplays, and with a certain amount of stealing from other Marx Brothers films. The main character, Jimmy, would have been played by Harpo Marx with Groucho and Chico teaming up, a departure from almost all of the other Marx Brothers films in which if the brothers aren’t grouped together (as in Monkey Business and Room Service), Chico and Harpo are paired against Groucho (the exception being The Big Store, which pairs Harpo and Groucho).

Within the confines of Giraffes on Horseback Salad, Groucho comes across as the most true to his film character. Chico practically disappears, although when he is in frame, he tends to sound quite a bit like Chico, although in a more subservient role without playing a foil to Groucho. The most problematic character is Harpo’s Jimmy, a problem that resides less in the graphic novel’s writers than it did in Salvador Dalí’s vision.

Harpo Marx is known as a mime, never having spoken on camera in any of his films or inteviews. Furthermore, just as Groucho and Chico were known for specific costumes and makeup, Harpo was known for wearing an overcoat, an orange wig, and a top hat. Jimmy, Harpo’s character, runs a business and dresses accordingly. He has no problem speaking and is involved with a woman, although she cheats on him. His desire for something new leads him to The Surrealist Woman, who introduces Jimmy and the entire country to surrealism. In some ways, Harpo is the most surrealist of the Marx Brothers, so it almost makes sense for Dalí to attempt to make him normal. At the same time, throughout the work, Jimmy occasionally turns into the more traditional Harpo figure, almost making Giraffes on Horseback Salad a Harpo Marx origin story.

Although there is definitely a surreal element to the Marx Brothers’ humor and films, it is always grounded in reality. The Marx Brothers very directly use their surrealism and anarchy to puncture the status quo they see around them. The treatment of Giraffes on Horseback Salad that Dalí presented to Louis Mayer did not fit in with the Marx Brothers’ style, even if Mayer had been a fan of the Marx Brothers. That isn’t to say there wasn’t an audience for the strange ideas that Dalí presented. Around the time Dalí made his pitch, Olsen and Johnson were touring with their live action surreal performance Hellzapoppin’, one of only three plays to have more than 500 performances on Broadway in the 1930s and becoming Broadway’s longest running musical up to that time.

The artwork throughout the book manages to capture the frenetic movement of all three of the brothers, even as they are relegated to the static form of ink on paper. Pertega manages to capture the look for both Chico and Groucho’s characters and imply their typical movements, presumably only being less successful with Harpo’s Jimmy since the script doesn’t call for him to move or act like Harpo. The artwork also provides details, and frequently includes jokes, rather than merely presenting the characters in a minimalistic setting.

The resulting book is one that adds to the knowledge of the Marx Brothers and this failed project while offering a suggestion of what it might have been. Unlike Noah Diamond’s recent exploration of the Marx Brothers first Broadway play, I’ll Say She Is, which leaves the reader wishing the original play were still available (and hopeful that Diamond’s recreation will continue to be performed), Frank’s work offers a glimpse of what might have been, but is probably better of left without being fully realized.

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