Marx Brothers: A Night at Elaine’s
Filmed in 1997, “Pothole” was one of the best episodes of Seinfeld. Elaine is frustrated by the fact that a delivery service doesn’t operate on her side of the street so she temporarily moves into a janitor’s closet in the building across from hers. Of course, she gets mistaken for an actual janitor by a tenant who remprimands her for not doing her job. At the same time, Jerry’s new girlfriend takes revenge on him for dropping her toothbrush into the toilet bowl while Kramer ends up in a pickle after wrecking havoc on the highway, setting Newman on fire. America’s most famous postman delivers his finest vocal performance in the truck with the song “Three Times a Lady” before the Reddit-debated scream “oh, the humanity!”.
Andy Ackerman won an Emmy for Outstanding direction, which sufficiently underlines the sheer brilliance of what Seinfeld does best: finding a common thread in different narratives and tying them together. The name of the episode comes from the narrative arc with George who loses his keys when they fall into a fresh pothole, which has to be sledgehammered to retrieve them. On the other hand the road leads to Kramer and his parenting of the highway that turns into a nightmare. Because as we know, that’s what usually happens with him . Kristin Davis delivers the role of a lifetime when compared to her prude princess in Sex & City. She makes Jerry’s germophobia look ridiculous. Luckily, nothing ever dropped in my toilet bowl that I’d otherwise put in my mouth.
One particular scene from “Pothole” reminds me of the cult 1935 film A Night at the Opera by the Marx Brothers: Jerry, George and Kramer come to see Elaine at her new address and have to hide when a tenant knocks on the door, which causes quite a chaos in the small storage room. On the other hand, in the movie, the space is called the State Room though it’s actually a third class cabin not much bigger than the broom closet in Seinfeld. The film was the biggest box office success that year and could easily give many modern comedies a run for their money since we’re scared to offend anyone. The only thing that remains is a sanitised satire deep in everyone’s political comfort zone. The Marx Brothers were a much more daring bunch. I first got acquainted with Groucho through the comic book where he played the bizarre assistant of the detective Dylan Dog.
Groucho’s own sense of humor was bizarre as well, since he kept telling jokes almost in the manner of the Tourette syndrome. With his brothers, he left a profound mark in comedy and a legacy worth aspiring to. The movie in question is slightly off the mainstream radar nowadays, which gives it a touch of a hidden treasure. Judging by what we’re lately being served at the Dream factory, I’d much prefer a second helping of something like this. Not just because Seinfeld was good at knitting narratives, figuratively speaking. Similarly, Sam Wood’s 1935 masterpiece is set in several different settings. The ship shared by many characters provides a dynamic narrative frame. It’s not ecactly like the Diamond Princess cruise ship that turned into a gigantic, chaotic quarantine during COVID, though I’m sure the Marx Brothers would find a way to give it a black humor spin as well.
The State Room is a perfect metaphor for the world most of us live in: dolled up in pretentious intent, yet small and unremarkable. The people squeezed into a pile inside represent what we are as opposed to what we want to be. Humor is the tool for healing and freedom, and the legendary troupe certainly knew how to do it. They were established stars of vaudeville and starred in 14 films, like this one and “Duck Soup” from 1933. They displayed a remarkable capacity for comedy which deserves much more attention than it currently has. If a streaming platform picked their work up, it would certainly change. After all, though millennials do remember Seinfeld’s heyday, it’s due to its presence on Netflix that modern audiences can see why it’s such a treasure. Or religion-like, in my case.
The brothers were born in New York, to parents who fled from war-stricken Europe. Their mother Minnie acted as their manager, supporting their career from the start and had herself a showbusiness background. Her father was a ventriloquist and funfair entertainer. It was a form of culture that’s now renegated to nostalgia and old-fashioned good time in the best sense of the word. Those places weren’t the Disneyland we know today. You could compare it to English coastal towns and their long seaside piers with pavilions, musicians and pastries. There were funfairs in my part of Europe as well. The other day I found a Polaroid of me with a chimp wearing a pajama, which was taken by one of the local photographers. Back then it was incredibly cute. My middle-aged brain though would have preferred to smash the camera and help the chimp escape that torture for the masses.
The trio were lucky insofar they were encouraged to pursue their ambitions instead of settling for something off-stage and financially stable. Sooner or later it had to click and it actually did. You can trace it back to one night in 1912 and their performance at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas. Alerts about a runaway mule led the audience to get out and see it. When they returned, an irritated Groucho respoded by hurling insults at them. What happened then was the exact opposite of the incident with Michael Richards at the Laugh Factory that effectively killed both his career and reputation in 2006. But here, the crowd reacted with laughs which must have been a great relief for Groucho. Maybe our skin was simply a bit thicker than today. Because now it’s as thick as gauze and not nearly as audacious as his moustache. Well, once upon a time it wasn’t.
They weren’t really like your typical boy band from the 1990s: there was no MTV, no image consultants. In fact, they were so chaotic that I wouldn’t be caught dead in the clothes they wore most of the time. Admittedly, deep in the vault of my photos on social media, you can dig out photos of mine with a moustache, but if you saw it I’d have to kill you. It was the age of chunky turquoise rings, cheap beer and fedoras. What was I thinking? The sins of youth, I guess. When the calls for World War I recruits started to spread, Minnie Marx made the smart move of purchasing a plot of farm land in Illinois since farmers weren’t drafted. It was a poultry farm, an idea that might as well be a plotline from Seinfeld. Eventually the system caught up with their brother Gummo who spent the war years serving in Illinois.
Not unlike the English royals, they decided to conceal their German origins to escape the negative publicity that came with it at the time in America. The difference being that their real estate portfolio was likely shorter than the menu at a reception in Buckingham Palace. As far as the rest of their legacy is concerned, there’s a lot to unpack and I’d need at least two additional articles so I’ll stick to a shorter form. The ascent of the so-called talkies spelled the end of quite a few illustrious careers in Hollywood. Fortunately, the Marx Brothers had settled in the industry by that time and adapted to the new medium which we can see in movies they left behind. What’s more, “A Night at the Opera” ranks nicely even in 21st century among the critics. Allegedly, it was banned in Budapest. Knowing who’s in charge there now, Groucho would probably take it as a compliment.
Their self-managing was remarkable too: the Broadway revue “I’ll Say She Is” was managed by Chico and directed by Groucho. It also involved talents like Irving Berlin and George S. Kaufman and while it wasn’t on the same level with Las Vegas residencies of today, I’d rather pay to see them insult me on stage than Celine Dion belting out her ballads at Caesar’s Palace. Their skills at improvisation and style bordering on coordinated anarchy remains a milestone in history of Broadway and comedy as such. While the catalogue of colorful side characters isn’t nearly as incredible as the one in Seinfeld, the two share a particular propensity for an attitude to the human condition on the pendulum between ignorant and ironic. It’s the image of a society mocking itself and its ingrained sense of humorous hypocrisy.
Elaine’s little trick shows how far the people in Seinfeld’s universe are prepared to go just to get their hands on something as plain as food delivery. When they don’t eat it, they use it as skincare. Like Kramer who literally fried himself like a chicken fillet when he swappeed his moisturizer for butter in one episode. We laugh at them, knowing full well that in a real life situation, these would be horribly selfish people you should definitely stay away from. But I’d argue that there’s a tiny speck of Elaine’s in all of us. That’s what keeps me from hating her. And Groucho? I think he’d be the only one who could outsmart her. Or even George Constanza, who cheated at an IQ test just to impress his girlfriend. I wouldn’t move into someone else’s broom closet for a pizza. But it’s quite entertaining to see there are people who would, fictional or real.
There was nothing fictional about the sensational appeal of the kings of American comedy. By the time they retired, they were already a part of the entertainment canon and it’s safe to assume they’ll stay there. Because that’s exactly where the extraordinary ones among us belong. In the 1970s, there was a reunion for an animation special with a group of other stars, like Phyllis Diller. If inspiration is a good indicator of value, theirs speaks volumes in the context of those that were inspired by their work: Judd Apatow, John Cleese, Woody Allen, all the way to Salvador Dali and Salinger. Funny may have been Groucho’s middle name, but this is nothing to laugh at. It’s even more precious due to the fact that most of the comedians today don’t have the balls to meddle with holy cows of our society. Or at least not as many as all the Marx Brothers combined. Otherwise, Michael Richards would be on stage, but just like us, he needs a much thicker skin too. Maybe it’s high time for us to go back to vaudeville.
