Comedy Feature Films, Including Duck Soup and A Day at the Races

Description

Comedy Feature Films, Including Duck Soup and A Day at the Races (Paramount, 1933/1937), Cat's Paw (Fox Film, 1934, UK), Hips, Hips, Hooray! (RKO, 1934), Professor Beware (Paramount, 1938), At the Circus (MGM, 1939), The Great Dictator (UA, 1940, US/UK), Great Guns (TCF, 1941, UK), and Time Out for Rhythm (Columbia, 1941) 8" x 10" Studio Release Photographs (120+). Vintage gelatin silver glossy studio release photographs of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Rogue Song (MGM, 1930) (2), Groucho Marx with Margaret Dumont and Raquel Torres in Duck Soup (dir. Leo McCarey) (5+), Harpo Marx in A Day at the Races (4), Chico and Harpo Marx in At the Circus (3), Harold Lloyd with Una Merkel in Cat's Paw (5+) and Phyllis Welch in Professor Beware (25+), Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey with Thelma Todd in Hips, Hips, Hooray! (dir. Mark Sandrich) (15+) by Ernest A. Bachrach, Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard in The Great Dictator (dir. Chaplin) (10+) with 8.5" x 11" caption list, Laurel and Hardy in Great Guns (35+), Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Howard in Time Out for Rhythm (3), and Howard, Fine, and Joe DeRita with Adam West in The Outlaws is Coming (Columbia, 1965, UK) (2), with wet stamp, ADVANCE PRESS STILL stamp, caption stamp, and paper caption on the verso. Fine/Very Fine, with corner crease (1), soft corner tips, and light handling. Comes with a COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: This archive showcases a rich and wide-ranging visual chronicle of 20th-century American screen comedy, from silent-era legends to the mid-century revival of slapstick. But at its center lies a comedic and political watershed: the Duck Soup (1933) stills, including several from the film's legendary musical set piece featuring Groucho Marx, Margaret Dumont, and Raquel Torres. In one of the most enduring scenes in comic cinema, Groucho—playing the absurd dictator Rufus T. Firefly—leads a satirical war chant and dance routine, mocking both the pomp of militarism and the conventions of political leadership. The stills capture Groucho clad in absurd military regalia, surrounded by fawning officials, with Dumont as his eternally impervious society matron. Directed by Leo McCarey, the anarchically madcap sequence parodies national anthems, fascist posturing, and operetta-style bombast, and would go on to influence everything from Mel Brooks to Monty Python.

Alongside this peak are rare materials from Laurel and Hardy (The Rogue Song, Great Guns), Harold Lloyd (The Cat's Paw, Professor Beware), Wheeler and Woolsey, Chaplin in The Great Dictator, and multiple configurations of The Three Stooges. These stills reflect the breadth of American comic forms—vaudeville, silent pantomime, screwball, political satire—and the evolution of how laughter was used to reflect, distract from, or directly challenge the social and political anxieties of their time. This archive, anchored by Groucho Marx's anarchic musical performance in Duck Soup, is a visual treasury of comedy as both film art and cultural resistance.


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