Go West (1940 film)
Go West | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster. | |
Directed by | Edward Buzzell |
Written by | Irving Brecher Nat Perrin (uncredited) |
Produced by | Jack Cummings |
Starring | Groucho Marx Harpo Marx Chico Marx John Carroll Diana Lewis |
Cinematography | Leonard Smith |
Edited by | Blanche Sewell |
Music by | George Bassman (orchestrations) Georgie Stoll (music direction) |
Production company | Metro-Goldwyn Mayer |
Distributed by | Loew's Inc. |
Release date |
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Running time | 80 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Go West is a 1940 American Western comedy film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring the Marx Bros. In their tenth film, Groucho, Harpo, and Chico head to the American West and attempt to unite a couple by ensuring that a stolen property deed is retrieved. The film was directed by Edward Buzzell and written by Irving Brecher, who receives the original screenplay credit.
Plot[]
Confidence man S. Quentin Quale is heading west to find his fortune, but is short ten dollars for a train ticket. In the railroad station, he encounters brothers Joseph and Rusty Panello and attempts to swindle their money, but the two manage to swindle Quale's money, instead. The Panellos are friends with an old prospector named Dan Wilson whose near worthless property, Dead Man's Gulch, has no gold. The Panello's loan Wilson their last ten dollars for a grubstake and he insists on giving them the deed to the Gulch as collateral. Unbeknownst to Wilson, the son of his longtime rival and beau to his granddaughter Eve Wilson, Terry Turner has contacted the railway and persuaded them to lay their track through the gulch, making the deed holder rich. After crooked railroad executive John Beecher and shady saloon owner "Red" Baxter manage to steal the deed, Quale and the Panello brothers help Terry and Eve retrieve the deed and deliver it to the railway officials in New York.
Cast[]
- Groucho Marx as S. Quentin Quale
- Chico Marx as Joe Panello
- Harpo Marx as "Rusty" Panello
- John Carroll as Terry Turner
- Diana Lewis as Eve Wilson
- Walter Woolf King as John Beecher
- Robert Barrat as "Red" Baxter
- June MacCloy as Lulubelle
- George Lessey as Railroad President
Uncredited Cast
- Tully Marshall as Dan Wilson
- Iris Adrian as Mary Lou
- Joan Woodbury as Melody
- Joe Yule as Crystal Palace Bartender Joe
- Mitchell Lewis as Halfbreed Indian Pete
- Arthur Housman as Drunk In Saloon
- Frederick Burton as Johnson
Production[]
![]() | This section does not cite any sources. (November 2015) |
Like all other Marx Brothers MGM films, Go West has several musical numbers, including "You Can't Argue with Love" by Bronislau Kaper and Gus Kahn, "Ridin' the Range" by Roger Edens and Gus Kahn, "From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water" by Charles Wakefield Cadman and "The Woodpecker Song" by Harold Adamson and Eldo di Lazzaro. (In this song, Chico, playing the piano, rolls an orange on the keys in sync with the melody.)
As with A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, the Marxes played key comedy scenes from Go West live onstage on a pre-filming tour; this tour was much shorter than that for the first two films, lasting three weeks.
Groucho was aged 49 during the filming of Go West, and his hairline had begun receding. As such, he took to wearing a toupee throughout the film, as he did in the previous film, At the Circus.
Go West Screenwriter Irving Brecher stood in for an ailing Groucho when publicity stills for the film were first taken. Brecher bore a remarkable resemblance to Groucho and is all but unrecognizable in the photos, sporting Groucho's glasses, greasepaint mustache and eyebrows.
Musical numbers[]
- "You Can't Argue With Love"
- "From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water"
- "Ridin' The Range"
Reception[]
Thomas M. Pryor of The New York Times called the film "an unevenly paced show" with "only one really funny sequence," referring to the climax.[1] Variety wrote, "The three Marx Bros. ride a merry trail of laughs and broad burlesque in a speedy adventure through the sagebrush country," adding that the film had "many fresh situations for the Marxian antics."[2] Harrison's Reports wrote that it was "much better than their last two pictures" and that the final twenty minutes "should thrill as well as amuse spectators."[3] Film Daily called it "wildly funny in places, amusing for the most part and dead in one or two spots that a little editing could improve."[4] John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote, "Possibly not the most strenuous Marxian product that we have seen, the picture nevertheless is very satisfactory and quite lunatic enough."[5]
References[]
- ^ The New York Times Film Reviews, Volume 3: 1939-1948. New York: The New York Times & Arno Press. 1970. p. 1772.
- ^ "Film Reviews". Variety. New York: Variety, Inc. December 18, 1940. p. 16.
- ^ "Go West". Harrison's Reports. New York: Harrison's Reports, Inc.: 202 December 21, 1940.
- ^ "Reviews of the New Films". Film Daily. New York: Wid's Films and Film Folk, Inc.: 5 December 11, 1940.
- ^ Mosher, John (February 22, 1941). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. New York: F-R Publishing Corp. p. 74.
External links[]
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- 1940 films
- English-language films
- 1940s Western (genre) comedy films
- American films
- American black-and-white films
- 1940s English-language films
- Marx Brothers (film series)
- American Western (genre) comedy films
- Mining in film
- Rail transport films
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
- Films directed by Edward Buzzell
- Films with screenplays by Buster Keaton
- Films with screenplays by Irving Brecher
- 1940 comedy films