Certianly not one of the Marx Brothers better efforts, this one finds Groucho the new manager of the Casablanca Hotel. Little does he know, however, that the previous three managers have all been killed. Harpo is first seen leaning against a building minding his own business when a
policeman (who's been told to "round up all the usual suspects" by police chief Seymour after the most recent hotel manager murder) spots him and asks, "What do you think you're doing? Holding the building up?" Harpo nods "Yes", the angry cop pulls him away, and the building collapses. Soon after
we learn that Harpo is employed as sadistic Nazi Rumann's valet. Rumann, who has assumed a different identity, enjoys subjecting Harpo to all manner of abuse, abuse that Harpo cleverly circumvents (at one point he dons a catcher's uniform to protect himself) much to the dismay of Rumann. Chico,
the president of the Yellow Camel Company, arrives in time to pester Groucho, who now finds himself the focus of a new set of assassination attempts. Eventually it is revealed that Rumann and his beautiful accomplice, Verea, have been killing off the managers of the hotel so that he can gain
control of the establishment in order to locate a cache of valuable art that was stolen during WW II and hidden on the premises. After several attempts, Rumann gets frustrated and decides to leave for Tunis. The brothers, who have by now figured out the plot, manage to board the Nazi's escape
plane. They waste no time overpowering the crew and they take over the plane with Harpo at the controls. It proves to be a glorious experience for Harpo, who delights in turning every knob and pushing every button in the cockpit, until he crashes the plane into a nightclub and Rumann is revealed
as a Nazi and apprehended.
A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA might never have been made if it hadn't been for Chico, who needed the money and convinced Groucho to do the film. Groucho, who was frustrated with his floundering radio career, agreed to do the film to help resolve his brother's financial troubles. Legal difficulties soon
popped up when Warner Bros. threatened to sue if the producers insisted on using the name "Casablanca" (Warner Bros. had produced Bogart's CASABLANCA). This led to some of Groucho's funniest and most biting letter writing, in which he harangued Warner Bros. unmercifully with a tirade of words
pointing out just how ridiculous the threatened lawsuit was. After receiving two of Groucho's nasty letters, the Warner Bros. legal department gave up. The best bits in A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA belong to Harpo. A virtually unknown gag writer by the name of Frank Tashlin, later to become one of the
brightest comedy directors of the 1950s (THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT, WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER?), was hired to write Harpo's comedy bits. The Tashlin-Harpo collaboration proved to be the best material in the film, but a still-naive Tashlin never received the valuable screen credit he deserved for
the work. Nevertheless, the Marx Brothers look old and tired in the film, and though it contains some very funny moments it falls far short of being among one of their classics. leave a comment