81. Mr. Blue Sky &...

Lyrics

Sun is shinin' in the sky
There ain't a cloud in sight
It's stopped rainin', everybody's in the lane
And don't you know, it's a beautiful new day, hey

Runnin' down the Avenue
See how the sun shines brightly
In the city on the streets where once was pity
Mr. Blue Sky is living here today, hey

Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Hey, you with the pretty face
Welcome to the human race
A celebration Mr. Blue Sky's up there waitin'
And today is the day we've waited for

Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Hey there Mr. Blue, we're so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do
Everybody smiles at you

Hey there Mr. Blue, we're so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do
Everyone is positive

Mr. Blue you did it right
But soon comes Mr. Night
Creepin' over, now his hand is on your shoulder
Never mind, I'll remember you this, I'll remember you this way

Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Hey there Mr. Blue, we're so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do
Everybody smiles at you

I am not very familiar with Electric Light Orchestra, but I am not much of a fan of them based on what I've heard. I don't like this song much either, but I can see why it is so popular. It is a song made to cheer you up. It reminded me of that great scene in Hannah and her Sisters where Woody Allen, contemplating death goes into a movie theater and watches such an enthralling movie that he realizes life is worth living. I linked this song, not to Hannah and Her Sisters, but to the movie Allen was watching there.

The Movie: Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)

Duck Soup is a Marx Brothers comedy. Together with Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, The Marx Brothers, headlined by Groucho Marx, are often considered among the most important influential comedians from the early days of film. I still haven't seen anything of Lloyd, but based on Duck Soup I prefer Keaton and Chaplin over The Marx Brothers. Their movies (or those I've seen of them) are both funnier and slightly more substantial than Duck Soup. That doesn't mean I did not enjoy Duck Soup, but I did wish it did a bit more with its premise. Duck Soup tells the 'story' of Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx), who is by circumstance appointed as dictator of Freedonia. At the same time Trentino, the ambassador of Sylvania tries to create a revolution in Freedonia, so Sylvania can take it over. He sends two goofing spies to Freedonia, who mostly create chaos, while at the same time Rufus and Trentino develop a personal grudge against one another, because of Mrs. Teasdale. This leads to all kinds of funny scenes. 

Although the film is anarchic and irreverent of authority figures, its (political) backdrop is a bit random. The movie could have much of the same jokes and even much of the same plot if it was set in, say, a supermarket. That is not much of a problem, but as I've discussed on this blog earlier, I am a fan of (political) satire. It is not that the movie does not contain that at all, but I wished it would have been a bit more satirical, and that the best gags in the movie were more connected to the main premise. Still, the movie does show how vapid the ideas of the politicians are, by showing that personal gains are all that Rufus and Trentino care about. Having said that, I've read critics trying to present this movie as some sort of commentary/reflection of Hitler's rise to power. That has more to do with the fact that Hitler became Germany's leader in the same year the movie came out, than with the actual content of the movie. Duck Soup does not offer any insights into that, and is also totally uninterested in offering them. It just wants to be an entertaining comedy, and to present it as some sort of social commentary is to do it an enormous disservice. Movies do not need to be social commentaries, and they certainly need not have a special message. Sometimes just being an entertaining comedy is enough, especially if it is as entertaining as Duck Soup.

Watching Duck Soup, it struck me how much this can be seen as something of a 'transitional' comedy. It combines rather old-fashioned comedy perfectly with more modern humor. And it combines the strengths of silent cinema really well with those of sound film. While most of the actors around Groucho Marx act rather theatrically, and in a way that is now very much out of fashion, Groucho basically acts as a sort of stand-up comedian. It is very easy to see why, and how, Woody Allen was influenced by him. When Groucho speaks we often see him in a close-up, or a (medium) shot in which he is the only one of interest. The jokes and one-liners he says are very much structured in a way that is familiar to us, modern audiences. Still, the best jokes in the movie are visual jokes, which rely very much on the movement and placement of both the actors in the frame, and the camera itself. The influence of silent cinema is very much visible during these scenes (if only because spy Pinky (Harpo Marx) is a mute). In many scenes not only do the actors not say anything, but we also do not hear any music on the soundtrack. One example is a scene in which the two spies Chicolini (Chico Marx) and Pinki irritate a street vendor by passing around his hat. But the best scene in the movie comes when Chicolini and Pinki break into Mrs. Tisdale's house. Pinki pretends to be Rufus, only Rufus himself is there too. While nervously trying to hide Pinki breaks a mirror. Rufus hears something and now goes to the mirror which he does not now is broken. What follows is a wonderful scene before the broken mirror in which Pinki has to imitate Rufus perfectly, so he doesn't realize that the mirror is broken and that thus there is an intruder. It's a long and incredibly funny scene, timed perfectly by both actors.What's most exceptional about it though, is how intelligently it is timed. They realized that Pinki must react to Rufus' behavior, but he that obviously cannot anticipate his behavior and cannot react at the same time. So we see that Harpo Marx manages to react just a fraction of a second later than his brother. I have seen quite some other scenes in the same vein, but they completely forget this, and have the two subjects of the scene behave in perfect unison. Thus the scene is quite extraordinary not only for its timing, but also for its great attention to detail.