The Appropriate Tune - "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune", by Johnny Marvin
Cyclical trends. Every year or so it seems that a generation of people rediscover something that was popular with the previous generation and suddenly society is inundated with the stuff. In the 70’s folks were all about the 50’s; They watched Happy Days on their TV sets, went to see Grease and American Graffitti in theaters and attended Elvis Presley concerts in droves. The 90’s saw two Woodstocks and the revival of both swing and lounge music, for some reason. Even in this day and age it’s not difficult to find a song or a movie that’s lifting the 80’s aesthetic or a video game trying to be the next Earthbound or Final Fantasy 6. A common complaint thrown at Hollywood is its insistence on reboots and remakes, but the fact of the matter is that our society in general has been recursive. We’re constantly looking backwards, recycling, repackaging and deconstructing things we’ve done before, even if we don’t really have anything to say.
Possibly the weirdest example of recursive pop culture are what I would tentatively call
Which brings us to today’s film: Brain Donors, written by Pat Proft and directed by Dennis Dugan through Zucker Brothers Productions, back when the Zuckers were known for things like Airplane! and Police Squad rather than Scary Movie 3. Bob Nelson, Mel Smith and John Turturro star as Jacques (the oddball), Rocco (the streetwise conman) and Roland T. Flakfizer (the silver-tongued lawyer), three men who are brought together when the wealthy husband of wealthy philanthropist Lillian Oglethorpe unexpectedly passes. Mr. Oglethorpe’s will sets aside a significant chunk of change for the creation of a ballet company, and long-time toadie Edmund Lazlo is confident that lucrative chairman position belongs to him, only for his schemes to be dashed when Roland (who had sweet-talked his way into being the widow Oglethorpe’s personal solicitor) catches a whiff of easy money and sweet-talks his way into consideration for the job. The winner will obviously be one who provides the greatest boon for the company though, and Edmund has The Great Volare waiting in the wings. If Roland and the boys want that fat paycheck they’re gonna have to think on their feet, which is probably going to make it hard to stand up, and Edmund isn’t going to take it sitting down, although from the look of him he’s got plenty of experience. Tutu troubles and general chaos abound, which would have arguably been a much better title for this film than Brain Donors.
This is certainly an odd one. To say that Brain Donors takes inspiration from the Marx Brothers is like saying Vanilla Ice took inspiration from David Bowie and Queen. Tuturro, Smith and Nelson are slotted into the same roles that Groucho, Chico and Harpo would have been, doing the exact same things the Marx Brothers would have done, it’s got the rich socialite that in the past would have been played by Margaret Dumont, it’s got the tacked on romance subplot, they even name drop A Night at the Opera in the credits. About the only thing they don’t do is musical interlude where one of the leads plays the piano or the harp, which admittedly might have been a bit difficult to fit into a movie that was ostensibly about dancing, but that wouldn’t have stopped the originals.
What sets Brain Donors apart from those revival films though is that while it is essentially a Marx Brothers movie, the three leads are not pretending to be the Marx Brothers. Mel Smith fills the same role as Chico Marx, but Rocco is played as a working-class Brit, rather than an Italian. Bob Nelson is the Harpo of the film but he’s not just rehashing Harpo, he’s even got dialogue. They’re subtle changes sure, but they serve to establish Brain Donors as a loving homage to the work of the Marx Bros., which is a far more palatable option than the straight up copy and paste job of the Laurel & Hardy and 3 Stooges reboot. Turning an eye to what came before without outright cannibalizing it, a novel concept indeed.
Brain Donors also sets itself apart from its influence in the way it utilizes visual comedy. The Marx Brothers were no stranger to that of course, especially Harpo, but it seems far more prevalent and elaborate in this film than it did in those films. The benefits of several decades of filmmaking techniques, but having David and Jerry Zucker in the producer chair very likely had a part in that as well. The scene where Jacques opens up a laptop computer and it extends out in such a way to eventually become a full-sized desktop PC, complete with a desk and a blowup doll definitely feels like something you would have seen in Naked Gun or The Kentucky Fried Movie.
Unfortunately as the successor to the Marx Brothers filmography suffers from the same issues that one could place on those films, which feel more and more blatant when removed from their original context. The plot is superfluous, an excuse to tackle the Brothers’ favorite subject (high society dipshits), but paper thin as it is they still seem to struggle to make this ballet concept work. They’ve got the tacked on romance subplot as I said, but they’ve taken it a step farther to the point that it is positively anemic. Zeppo at least got a song or two, he shared the screen with his brothers a couple times, he wasn’t the moneymaker but he was still relevant to some degree. By contrast Alan, this movie’s male romantic lead, is just some guy. He dances a couple times, in a movie about dancers it’s bound to happen sooner or later, but he never really interacts with the leads in any meaningful way and to be honest I can barely recall what he looks like. I remember his fiance Lisa a bit better but she also barely has anything to do in this movie. Maybe like 3 minutes of romantic drama that is instantly resolved by the next scene, and having to fend off a rape attempt, because apparently we can’t have a movie without one of those.
I also can’t let this review go by without mentioning how much I hate the score. Music in cinema has changed over the years, the orchestral score is not as dominant as it once was, but sometimes a film comes along that makes you think maybe we were better off back when all movies sounded the same. Why a movie paying tribute to films from the 30s sounds like a PC adventure game from the 90s I don’t know, but it’s another one of those things that just feels off. Shouldn’t the score be zanier? Some big band swing with lots of brass? Why does the opening song sound like someone plunking away on a toy xylophone? Combined with the rather long claymation sequence at the beginning you’d think you’d accidentally popped in an episode of some obscure European children’s show.
In an ironic twist though, I think Brain Donors’ biggest problem is the exact thing I was praising it for earlier: These guys aren’t the Marx Brothers. They certainly aren’t bad, but they lack the fire that made the Marx Brothers the comedians that they were. John Tuturro is a great actor, but every time I watched him toss off one-liners as Roland it felt like he was trying to be funny, whereas Groucho was funny without really trying. It’s that effortlessness that really made the Marx Brothers what they were as comedians; They were always two steps ahead of anyone else, and every time they opened their mouths or set their sights on someone they proved it. Sometimes Groucho or Chico would drop a line so quickly that it would take a second or two to register, while here they stop the film entirely so they can push out a gag. The Brain Donors cast has the basic act down, they’ve certainly got some good lines, but without the Marx’s chaotic energy it just doesn’t hit the way it should. Brain Donors is certainly wacky but it’s not always funny, if that makes sense.
When Brain Donors hit theaters in 1992 it was not a great success, grossing under a million dollars, and it doesn’t seem to have gained a significant cult following in the years since, in fact I didn’t even know this movie existed until last year. Which makes sense, having now seen it for myself. Fans of obscure 90s video store fodder or screwball superfans might want to give Brain Donors a watch, but I think everyone else would be okay if they skipped it and went for Duck Soup instead. Then maybe later they could watch a Marx Brothers movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment