Annotated Update: The great Marx Brother doppelganger mystery

 [NOTE: This corrects and supersedes the equivalent passage in 'The Annotated Marx Brothers']

ANIMAL CRACKERS: 40:48/42:30 - The great Marx Brother doppelganger mystery

From the time the lights go out to the time they come back on again in this scene (in which Chico and Harpo noisily steal the painting while Groucho and Margaret Dumont comment from a nearby sofa) all three Marxes are doubled by other men. Though we never see Chico’s face clearly, the plainly inauthentic Harpo is briefly illuminated by a lightning flash (freeze-frame it), while ‘Groucho’ is visible throughout: thin and wiry, and with close-cropped hair entirely different from the fluffy, sharply centre-parted and v-shaped coiffure sported by the real man elsewhere.

Note also that they are plainly miming. Their physical gestures are forced and overt in order to match the dialogue, which they sometimes anticipate. When Groucho asks if anyone is there and Chico replies, ‘Groucho’ turns to Dumont (who is the real Dumont, by the way) and nods slowly for ages while he waits for the soundtrack to catch up with his actions. Look at big, bulky, slow ‘Harpo’ flapping his arms when he's hanging from the painting. ‘Chico’, too, makes a bunch of strange, slow gestures completely unlike his normal self.

Also, note the transitions in and out of the darkness. As the sequence begins, the lights go out on Chico and Harpo, and for less than a second we get to see them in the dark, as clearly defined as they need to be and as ‘they’ will be as the scene continues, moving with their usual pace and energy. Then, for no other reason than the one proposed, there’s a cut - but to what is essentially the exact same angle: it’s slightly off, but there’s no deliberate change. Why? And note how the pair are now suddenly doing that slow pantomime style that reveals the body language of two entirely different people. Even more strikingly, when the lights come back on at the end of the scene, they do not simply switch back on. The scene goes from twilight to pitch black - for no logical reason at all - before then cutting to full illumination - with the camera in a totally different position.

So, why should this be? Over the years I’ve considered a few possibilities. First, recall that this is the film in which director Victor Heerman supposedly had cells built and brought on the set so as to ensure the Marxes could not escape between takes. This popular story, stated as fact by Zeppo in his interview with Barry Norman, may have a kernel of truth but has surely been much exaggerated, first for publicity purposes and thereafter for legend-endurance purposes. (Heerman himself pooh-poohed it: “These were adult men, and they didn’t have to be locked in. There was a jail left over from another picture and we used it as a make-up room or for the actors to lie down in. It was never locked.”) But the point of the yarn - that it was genuinely difficult to get all four Marx Brothers on set and doing what they were supposed to be doing at the same time - is backed up by the testimony of just about everybody who worked with them. So perhaps the scene was shot on a day when they were AWOL, on the grounds that it was dark and nobody would be able to see them properly anyway? Or maybe it was planned that way from the first, as a scene that didn't need the real Brothers on set, thus relieving anybody of the need to find them all? Or did an original shoot prove unsatisfactory - maybe the light levels were wrong, and when a reshoot was ordered, it was decided not to bother recalling the Brothers themselves on the grounds that the soundtrack didn't need re-recording, and it doesn’t need to be them if the room is dark? Or could it be that the early sound recording techniques were still so cumbersome that no opportunity to get round them would be missed? So here we have a scene in the dark - why use live sound when you can't really see the lips move? Get the boys to record the dialogue, then they can mime to it without the sound department needing to get in on it at all. And from that realisation, came the decision not to use them physically at all...  

Another possibility is that it was shot while Harpo and Chico were ill. Both were indisposed during the filming, Chico with a kidney complaint that made physical business painful, and Harpo with an enlarged gland in his neck that required hospitalisation and surgery. Reports state that the latter did delay reshoots on the film, and clearly Harpo would have welcomed any chance to avoid the strenuous physical elements of the sequence in such a condition, even after his doctor confirmed he was capable of going back to work, some two weeks after close of principal photography. It may well be that this scene made an obvious choice for one that could be reshot without the need to recall the stars.

The likely (and very interesting) answer as to why a reshoot was needed in the first place showed up in a few newspapers when the film began its run:

 

Believe it or not – a real thunder-shower spoiled one of the ‘storm’ scenes, while Animal Crackers, the new Marx Brothers comedy feature, at the Strand today and tomorrow, was being recorded at the Paramount New York studio. A sequence shows Chico and Harpo Marx removing a painting from its frame during a storm which has put out the lights at the country house where they are guests. Arc-lamps were being switched on and off to simulate lightning and a property man was producing artificial thunder when a sudden spring storm burst over the studio. “Cut,” shouted director Victor Heerman, “we’ll finish the storm scene when the storm scene’s over.” (…) The New York studio is as completely sound-proofed as possible. Street noises do not filter through its thick walls, but no way has been found to keep electric discharges produced by lightning, and work has to be stopped whenever real thunder rolls over Long Island.

 

So if not the real Marxes, who are the people we see? A popular rumour among those who have only spotted the phony Groucho and not the phony Chico or Harpo, is that the Groucho stand-in is actually Zeppo! (One always has to be alert against the temptation to see whatever it is one wants to see. To test that hypothesis, I watched it again while pretending that I thought it was Claudette Colbert. Ironically, I now remain convinced that it is. ) Most likely, this is plain wishful thinking, plus a dash of confusion with the old story of Zeppo playing Groucho’s role on stage and nobody noticing. (It’s true that Zeppo stood in for Groucho when he had appendicitis, but not that nobody noticed: Variety called him “adept at the substitution” in a generally negative review.) But given that he’s hardly in the film even when his brothers are, it’s vanishingly unlikely that Zeppo would have been anywhere near the set if the other three were elsewhere. (Certainly the online chorus reveal something of the perils of magical thinking when they go on to speculate that Zeppo can be discerned impersonating Groucho's voice, when one of the most obvious giveaways that it is a double in the first place is the imprecise manner in which he is miming to a soundtrack - the voice is unquestionably Groucho's own.) And anyway: just look at that guy. He could no more pass for Zeppo than he could for Groucho.

The most likely explanation, if not the most exciting, is that what we are seeing are their stand-ins. Like any other stars, the Marxes had reasonably similar stand-ins, never normally seen on screen, to take their place on set while the scene is being set-up. Given that it is intended to be impenetrably dark, it would have seemed entirely sensible to use them here, especially in a costly reshoot. We can be sure that stand-ins were used on the film generally, because Film Daily saw them and told us about them: “Anyone visiting the Animal Crackers set at the Paramount New York studios might be led to believe that the Marx Brothers are twins, since an extra set of stand-ins dressed exactly like the famous comedy quartette are always in evidence.”

So if I am right, and the men we see on screen are the stand-ins, here - for the first time since 1930 - are their names. As Harpo: Jack Cooper. According to Film Daily, Cooper “gave up songwriting to become an actor” and “looks so much like the real Harpo that visitors frequently rush up and shake his hand, thinking that he is the original.” Is he the same Jack Cooper who appears in bit parts for Hal Roach and Mack Sennett? I don’t know, but thanks for asking. As Chico: Packey O’Gatty. Packey drifted into films from the boxing ring; it’s possible he wound up here via a personal acquaintance either with Chico or director Victor Heerman, apparently an obsessive fight fan. Unlike the man he was impersonating, Packey was a genuine Italian, having been born Pasquale Agati in Sicily, and that’s him stood directly behind Chico as he explains his rates for performing and rehearsing. And as Groucho: I don't know. In the book I nominated Henry Van Bousen, a former silent star who ended up a department store Santa. He is an extra in the film, but we've since identified him, and he's not the ersatz Groucho. (I only ever thought he was because of a slightly misleading newspaper account.) There is the slim possibility that it could be Arthur Sheekman, who has form when it comes to in-joke appearances and Groucho impersonation, but the overwhelming likelihood is that it's Groucho's regular Animal Crackers stand-in. Sadly, I don't have a name for this mysterious creature at present, but the hunt goes on, and as soon as I get it I'll let you know.