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Phillip McSween (751 KP) rated Duck Soup (1933) in Movies

Jun 29, 2020  
Duck Soup (1933)
Duck Soup (1933)
1933 | Classics, Comedy, War
8
8.7 (12 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Decent Story Held Back By Too Many Confusing Plot Points
In Duck Soup, a wealthy widow offers aid to a struggling country on the condition they make a chaotic idiot their leader.

Acting: 10

Beginning: 10

Characters: 10
Main character Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) is absolutely hilarious. He has quips for days and he’s always doing something to liven up a scene. The other characters, while good, get lost in the greatness of his funny antics.

Cinematography/Visuals: 10
Numerous setpieces abound here which keeps the movie fresh. The movies’s consistent change of scenery and large visual spectacles propels Duck Soup to almost passable heights. I can appreciate a movie with a constant change of pace, especially older films.

Conflict: 3
I spent a decent amount of this movie trying to figure out just what exactly was going on. The conflict never seemed strong enough for me to think the stakes were worth it. It was clear the focus was more on the comedy aspect rather than driving the story.

Entertainment Value: 8

Memorability: 3

Pace: 10

Plot: 7

Resolution: 5
The ending was meh and that’s me being generous. It was essentially a compounding of the story as a whole which totally lost steam for me towards the back half of the movie. it felt like, by the time we reach the end, the writer forgot what initially made the story great in the first place.

Overall: 76
When you don’t really know what’s going on right off the nose, it makes it hard to settle into the story. Duck Soup does a lot of things rights. However, a solid main character and grandiose scenes aren’t quite enough to mask the fact that the movie falls just shy of being good. Not terrible, but definitely not great.