Duck Soup (1933) on Netflix
Freedonia is bankrupt, and widow Gloria Teasdale will bail it out only if Rufus T. Firefly is made its leader. Sylvania's ambassador schemes to stir a revolution there and annex it.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Gloria Teasdale, a wealthy widow, offers twenty million dollars to rescue the struggling nation of Freedonia from bankruptcy, on the condition that Rufus T. Firefly becomes its leader. Across the border, Ambassador Trentino of Sylvania is plotting to stir a revolution in Freedonia so that his own country can absorb it. Two men in his pay, Chicolini and Pinky, are assigned to find out what Firefly is doing. They set up a peanut cart outside his office, and Firefly appoints Chicolini Secretary of War. Firefly's secretary, Bob Roland, learns of the scheme and tells Firefly to insult Trentino, hoping the ambassador will slap him and give Firefly a reason to bar him from the country. Firefly and Trentino both court Mrs. Teasdale.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- The Marx Brothersas (as The Four Marx Brothers)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Duck Soup (1933)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Walt Disney sued Paramount Pictures for using the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" in Duck Soup without permission; Disney won financial damages in a settlement.
- The Marx Brothers' contract dispute with Paramount, including a threat to form their own company, Marx Bros., Inc., was settled shortly after their father Sam "Frenchie" Marx died in May 1933.
- Mussolini banned Duck Soup in Italy after taking it as a personal insult, and residents of Fredonia, New York, protested the film fearing the similar-sounding nation would hurt their city's reputation.
- The mirror scene in Duck Soup was a revival of an old Marx Brothers vaudeville act, and director Leo McCarey also contributed the Laurel and Hardy-like break-in sequence.
- In Duck Soup, the closing song "Freedonia's Going to War" is technically the only musical number in the Marx Brothers' films that features all four brothers.
- In 1990, the Library of Congress selected Duck Soup for preservation in the National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
- The film's cynical portrayal of war influenced Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, in which a screening of Duck Soup convinces Allen's character to abandon his suicidal impulses.
