Showing posts with label dark comedies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dark comedies. Show all posts

June 14, 2010

Duck Soup - 1933

Duck Soup


Duck Soup Masterprint
12 in. x 16 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed   Mounted


The Marx Brothers' greatest and funniest masterpiece - the classic comedy Duck Soup (1933) is a short but brilliant satire and satires of awkwardness dictatorial leaders, Fascism and authoritarian government. The film, produced by Herman Mankiewicz, was prepared during the crisis period of depression. Some of his gags and clever routines were taken from Groucho and Chico early 1930s radio steering wheel, steering wheel and Shyster. working for securities The film included Oo La La, firecrackers, grasshoppers, and cracked ice.

He was fifth Marx Brothers film in a five-film with Paramount studios, before going to MGM. It was their last and best film with the studio. The film was directed by first-class veteran director Leo McCarey (who was directing The Awful Truth (1937), Love Affair (1939), Going My Way (1944), and An Affair to Remember (1957) - a remake of his film, 1939), and its screenplay was written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin). Originally, it had to be directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The film was devoid of Oscar nominations.

The film was a scandalous failure critically and commercially at the time of its release - the audience was surprised by such a senseless political defiance, buffoonery and cynicism at a time of political and economic crisis, with Roosevelt's struggle against depression in the midst of rising American power of Hitler in Germany. (This quote from the movie, spoken by Groucho, was particularly hated: "And remember while you're out there risking life and limb by shot, we'll be here thinking what a sucker you are." ) Insulted by the film, the Italian fascist dictator Mussolini banned the film in his country.

Fortunately, the film was rediscovered by a generation of college students in 1960 and at festivals and screenings of the museum's rebirth. Consequently, the film was granted immortality. This was the last of the Marx Brothers films feature all four brothers. Their next film (without Zeppo), for MGM and its producer Irving Thalberg, the most prestigious studio in Hollywood, was their landmark film A Night At The Opera (1935), with a plot line more developed and polished.

Dr. Strangelove - 1964

Dr. Strangelove


Dr. Strangelove Framed Art Print
13 in. x 19 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com


Dr. Strangelove (1964) is the leading producer / director Stanley Kubrick's brilliant, Doomsday satirical, provocative black comedy / fantasy regarding policy and the Cold War that has an accident, inadvertently, preemptive nuclear attack. The undated film history - the first commercial success, political satire on nuclear war, has inevitably been compared to another thriller similar published at the same time - well over-serious and melodramatic Fail-Safe (1964). However, it was a cynical objective response, Monty Python-esque, humorous, biting the apocalyptic fears of the 1950s.

The scenario of mind, co-written by the director (with Terry Southern), was based on the novel by Peter George's Red Alert (the U.S. title). work [George's, under his pseudonym Peter Bryant, was published in England with the title of two hours for Doom. Early versions of the script were titled Edge of Doom and the delicate balance of terror.] The novel's main concern was the threat of accidental nuclear war. Dr. Strangelove himself does not appear in the novel, however - it was added by Kubrick and co-writer of the South.

nightmarish mid-1960s the film, its apocalyptic theme of how technology had gone haywire and had dominated humanity. fears of anti-war film actually became a plausible scenario, shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy's Bay of Pigs and the intensification heated up the Cold War and nuclear arms race. [Release of satirical film was delayed for 12 December 1963 to late January 1964, because of the assassination of Kennedy in late November.]