Why a Duck?

1971, possibly first edition, from Darien House
Richard J. Anobile
Why a Duck?: Visual and Verbal Gems from the Marx Brothers Movies
Original price $7.95, purchase price $5.00
Hardcover with torn dust-jacket and split spine
B-

This book was a 1989 gift from the same aunt who bought me the Claudine collection.  She wrote, "May the Marx Bros' irreverence to civilized human idiocy, which is really a reverence for life, always give you at least a chuckle."  That's more insightful than the preface by Richard F. Shepard, which gets the names and dates of several of their movies wrong.  (A Day at the Circus?  Come on!)  Groucho's introduction is mildly amusing.  He says in part, "When the Sexual Revolution began, I tried to enlist.  But all I got was a series of humiliating rejections.  That was from the men.  From the women came nothing but hysterical laughter."  He doesn't have all that much to say about the movies, or even the book, although the dust-jacket does show the then 80-year-old Groucho, beret and all, reading a copy of Why a Duck.

Anobile's introductory "notes" mostly address how the book came to be, and how he made the decisions on what to include and what not.  There are nine of the thirteen movies represented, with Animal Crackers an unfortunate omission due to legal complications.  As with the movies themselves, the wit of Horse Feathers and Duck Soup come off the best.  The dust-jacket says that the book "lets you enjoy nine great comic films in the comfort of your own home."  Remember, we're still at least a decade away from the average fan being able to watch movies on VHS.  Anobile's selection of "frame blow-ups" (not the same as production stills) is well chosen, if not exact matches for the dialogue.  (Sometimes there will be several pictures and only a few lines, while other times it's the reverse.)

If I can't rate the book higher, I think it's partly that the book is a bit flat without the actors' voices, Groucho's in particular.  Also, it's arguable whether much of the dialogue from the post-Day at the Races movies is funny.  (The hardest I ever laughed at Go West was one time when I thought, due to poor direction, that the horses were talking.)  If you're a Marx fan and you happen upon a copy of this, particularly if it's got the Al Hirschfeld caricatures on the front, it's probably worth buying, but I wouldn't recommend you go out of your way to get it.