Why is this considered their best work?

It's hysterical, but it's not as good as Night at the Opera, or Go West.
Also: Zeppo hate thread

>Night at the Opera
boring

>Go West
That's a pretty obscure contrarian pick, all I know of it is that Buster Keaton wrote some gags for it

Duck Soup is considered their best because it was their last and most accomplished Paramount film, before they switched to MGM and sort of became supporting characters in their own films. There they had to include more songs, romance, "real" characters because Irving Thalberg was a pretentious twit and had to make all his films seem classy. So the later films might be funnier but Duck Soup is the purest Marx Brothers

The mirror scene, you filthy pleb.

Also, Chico needed the money.

Is go west really contrarian? I just really liked it

Why don't most people know of the Marx Brothers? I fucking hate the three stooges for stealing their formula and ruining it

Well it's obscure for sure

Well the jokes and gags are mostly kinda weird and dated from today's perspective, because they're so heavily vaudevillian. Every movie is also the same, Chico plays the piano and hustles people, Harpo's a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen, Groucho fires a dozen entendres every other second, and Zeppo's a boring ninny who was a straight man nobody liked until he finally got the guts to quit talkies.

They're no more dated than Looney tunes

>She looks as healthy as any woman I ever met!
>You don't look as though you've ever met a healthy woman!

>Not Horse Feathers
I actually imagine that most people in charge of colleges today are like Groucho

I watched this for my intro to film class and I thought it was boring :\

Which was the one with Freedonia and Rufus T. Firefly? That one had some great moments, like the peanut salesman's hat sketch and was the speakeasy scene not in that one too?

And the classic elephant gag. Top tier.

max linder did it first.
keaton = bowers > lloyd > chaplin > marx brothers = laurel & hardy > fields = tati > raimu = rogers = langdon = linder > bevan = turpin = stooges > our gang >>>>> 'fatty'

Not only were they at the top of their game, but the film's anarchist overtones were pretty out of left field for comedies at the time, especially when combined with their novel brand of absurdity and being unhinged. Duck Soup is the perfect mix of all of those qualities and what makes it special.

This. Movies like Night at the Opera were funny for sure, but Duck Soup wins by subtext.

Night in Casablanca is surprisingly good considering it was only made to help pay Chico's gambling debts.

>Go West
We got a patrician over here, lads.

why the fatty hate?

Groucho, why did you order the assassination of JFK?