Love Happy |  | Directors: David Miller, Leo McCarey
Actors: Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Ilona Massey, Vera-Ellen, Marion Hutton
Studio: Republic Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
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Seller: mjentertainment
Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 20188
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: LGED14541D
UPC: 017153145410
EAN: 0017153145410
ASIN: B0002235M6
Theatrical Release Date: March 3, 1950
Release Date: June 15, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Smuggled jewels, a musical production, a beautiful thief, and stolen \sardines" combine to create comic mayhem.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: NR
Release Date: 15-JUN-2004
Media Type: DVD"""
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 28
Love Happy February 7, 2010
James C. Thorsby (Cathedral City, CA United States)
This is a good collector movie as it is the last movie that the Marx Brothers made together. Secondly, it is neat to see Marilyn Monroe in a brief bit part as this was the beginning of her career. The movie has some of the Harpo, Chico, and Groucho slapstic and music. However, it doesn't appear to be written as well as some of their earlier movies.
 Splendid send-off December 3, 2009
Rube Goldfinger (savannah, GA)
Most Marx Bros. fans think of "Night in Casablanca" as the swansong for the boys. And while it is the last "real Marx Brothers" movie, I prefer "Love Happy". The film has the most surreal and magical visual/physical humor of the later Marx movies since its mainly Harpo's project. And while there is little of the brothers actually sharing the screen, I think they were happier to appear as independent characters as their chemistry in "Casablanca" seemed phoned-in and possibly resentful. Also, the film's plot is tight, entertaining and moves at a brisk pace unlike some other later Marx Bros films.
Better than "Room Service", "Casablanca" and "Circus" IMO. But not better than "Go West" with its amazing Buster Keaton-written climax and classic quotables like "Time wounds all heels".
Should be owned.
Harpo Makes the Most of His Swan Song October 20, 2009
frankebe (redwood city, ca United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I could do my ever-so-smart-reviewer thing and list all the mistakes in this movie, but you can all do that pretty easily. Sure, there are a number of things I would have done differently, but it all boils down to this: it is a VERY entertaining movie if you do NOT look at it as a "Marx Brothers" movie. It just happens to have Chico and Groucho complementing Harpo-the-Clown.
Harpo and Chico look fabulous. It's unbelievable that they can jump and skip so effortlessly at ages 61 and 62. Groucho looks a little older here, but as another reviewer states, it doesn't hurt him a bit. I think the only real fault of this film is that it needs to be about 20 minutes shorter, by cutting out all the secondary plot possible. As a tight little film, it would have been an excellent send-off for these characters. As it is, it's a little long, but I found it highly entertaining and I laughed out loud many times.
Groucho immediately acquits himself as the best stand-up comic of all time. Chico gets to shoot the keys, and Leon Belasco fiddles to shame most modern "comedians" who can do nothing. Vera Ellen is fabulous; and Harpo is, as always, an endearing clown, performing better pantomime than you'll see from the clowns in Cirque du Soleil (who greatly disappointed me last time I saw them).
This is a pristine print of the complete film. If you have not seen this particular print, you have never seen the whole film. Snatch it before it gets withdrawn and some bastardized version replaces it.
Longer version of a lesser Marx Brothers romp August 14, 2008
John Lazar
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
LOVE HAPPY is the Marx Brothers' final starring feature film, though the spotlight here is on Harpo (the real star of the picture), while Chico and especially Groucho have supporting roles. This one is primarily for Marx completists, who will be delighted to learn that the print used for this DVD transfer runs 91 minutes rather than the standard 85-minute version previously released on VHS ... and seen on TV and in theatrical revivals. I'm not sure where this longer cut has been languishing all these years (the DVD is a Republic Pictures/Lions Gate release, yet there's a Paramount/Viacom logo too), but the shorter edition is the one that's been in general circulation over the past four decades. It's surprising that Republic didn't toot their own horn about having made this longer version available. Did they even realize it was a longer version?
The pictorial quality of this DVD is stunning. Every other edition I've seen -- including a 35mm print that dated back to 1953 -- looked like it was processed on outdated film stock, giving the picture a dimly-lit pictorial quality. Not so in this case: the image is sharp and distinct, giving this independent production a glossy, polished look it did not possess before.
None of the "new" scenes are what I'd call major sequences ... though, happily, additional gags conceived by Frank Tashlin (SON OF PALEFACE, ARTISTS AND MODELS, THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT) are now reinstated. (Unhappily, there's no extra footage of Marilyn Monroe.) I'm puzzled why these cuts were made in the first place -- in some instances it only shortens a scene by a matter of seconds.
Comparing the DVD to the old VHS edition, these are the restored sequences I noticed: the original introduction to Chico's character, narrated by Groucho; Harpo feeding a string of hot dogs to hungry actors inside a bull costume; Groucho showing the audience snapshots of him and Ilona Massey romping together in various locales; Harpo whirling around inside a giant washing machine while a gleeful Raymond Burr looks on; an additional encounter between Chico and Leon Belasco, narrated by Groucho; Melville Cooper showing Ilona Massey X-rays of Harpo; additional sight gags during the climactic rooftop chase (although there`s still a clumsy fadeout during the chase). Plus, there are additional, fleeting quips from Groucho (none of which are especially funny), as well as different music scoring for some scenes.
Again, I'm not sure why this movie was tinkered with. Why would United Artists, the original theatrical distributor, remove a number of Groucho's bits when he has so little to do to begin with? For that matter, why cut any Marx scenes in a film that has superfluous footage involving secondary characters?
The extra footage is fascinating to watch but it doesn't change my overall opinion of LOVE HAPPY. I think that the film has a number of very funny and imaginative scenes, but it still ranks as a lesser Marx effort. Nevertheless, if you're a true Marx Brothers fan, you'll want (and need) this DVD for your collection.
Not as awful as I'd remembered it March 10, 2006
Anyechka (Rensselaer, NY United States)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This was the first Marx Brothers movie I ever saw, and because of that, for quite some time I had the wrong impression of them, judging them by this pale weak mediocre movie. Thankfully, in the years since I've become familiar with their other 12 films and have realised that what I first saw was not at all representative of their true talents, and the reason why 'Love Happy' is so weak and unrepresentative. If someone goes into the viewing experience expecting a Marx Brothers movie, s/he'll likely be as disappointed and turned off as I was, but if one knows that it's essentially a solo vehicle for Harpo, a project in which his brothers just happen to star also, one will probably feel more kindly towards it.
I get the feeling that if this had stayed Harpo's solo project, and his brothers hadn't been roped into appearing as well since the studio thought it would never sell otherwise, it could have been at least a halfway decent and fun little movie. It might not have been a great movie, but it also wouldn't have fallen as flat as the end result ended up doing. I feel bad for him, knowing how long he'd wanted to do a solo film and how much this project meant to him, only to have it fail so miserably, so much so he never even mentioned the film in his memoirs. And the scenes where he appears alone are mostly quite good and funny, one last glimpse of the mischievous sprite, a really good screen farewell (not counting 'The Story of Mankind'). Although it is a bit disconcerting to see some of the closeups of him, where the illusion of this ageless clown gives way to the realisation that he was in his early sixties at the time and no longer as (relatively) young as he'd been at the peak of their career. Although appearing older didn't really hurt Groucho--he just went from a dirty young man to a dirty old man. He didn't really serve much of a purpose in this film, though, although he's as great as ever in the scenes he does get. (I've heard it mentioned that the wackier his name his, the funnier and wackier the film will be. Here his name is Sam Grunion, and this film is even worse than 'Room Service,' where his name was Gordon Miller.)
The major problem with this movie isn't really that the three brothers never get an entire scene together (though it does seem wasteful to have them all in the same movie yet never put them all together at the same time), but that it's just not consistent. Again, if this had remained Harpo's solo film, there probably wouldn't have been so many needless subplots or storylines that we never see really tied up or ended satisfactorily. The film is also marred by too many musical numbers, something that also hurt many of their post-Paramount films. They contribute nothing to the storyline, although I suppose that a song like "Who Stole That Jam?" isn't quite as nightmare-enducing as "The Tenement Symphony." We also have the requisite pseudo-Zeppo and the romantic subplot, although at least the pseudo-Zeppo in this picture isn't as actively annoying or nauseating as the ones in 'At the Circus' or 'The Big Store.' Even so, the viewer never really feels connected to these secondary characters, because unlike the romantic couples in 'A Night at the Opera' and 'A Day at the Races,' they're not really fully integrated into the plot surrounding the brothers, while at the same time they take up too much of the plot. Most people don't watch the Marx Brothers' movies because they want to see secondary characters taking up all the action! And there are times when one just feels like they're too old to still be doing this anymore, because it's just getting silly for men who are in their late fifties and early sixties to still be going on like this and doing their old act. A particularly vivid example is the scene where Harpo is miming to Chico that Maggie is in trouble. The pantomime scene in ADATR was funny and original, and the one in 'A Night in Casablanca' wasn't quite as funny or fresh, but it seemed right since there were so many scenes and gags in that picture hearkening back to things from their earlier films, like a poignant summing up of their entire career. Here it just goes on way too long, and gets extremely embarrassing and painful to watch. Now I understand why some people feel that the pantomime scene in ADATR marked the end of Harpo as a character who didn't talk and the beginning of him as one who couldn't talk.
Even so, in spite of the problems, there are enough funny scenes and gags for this movie to not be a complete waste. It's still the weakest of their movies, but even a film where they never appear together at the same time still has some of that old magic and is better than much of what passes for comedy today. Just don't let it be your first Marx Brothers movie.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 28
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