Studies in Marxism and Alienism
FLENDER, HAROLD
Studies in Marxism and Alienism Treadmill to Oblivion. By Fred Allen. Little, Brown. 240 pp. $4.00. Life with Groucho. By Arthur Marx. Simon & Schuster. 310 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by Harold...
...readers will get more than a chuckle out of the stories of the talking mynah bird which wouldn't talk, the phone-call threats from the Mafia, and the guest who thought the rehearsal was the actual broadcast and failed to show up when the show went on the air...
...At its best, Allen's humor was the most literate on radio...
...And there is the time Groucho was at a White House function when the Marine Band began to play...
...Allen's bitterness occupies a good portion of the commentary, and most of it falls hard on network vice-presidents, advertising-agency executives and studio audiences...
...Such incidents in the book are many and amusing...
...Life with Groucho, written by his son Arthur, attempts to tell the whole story of Groucho...
...tottering old men...
...soiled matrons...
...To argue against this contention is Groucho Marx...
...he turned to Eleanor Roosevelt and told her that now he understood why she traveled so often...
...That is why one welcomes books about them, even though they fail to do full justice to their subjects...
...There is also an honest, if unflattering, picture of Groucho the inconsistent dogmatist, the household tyrant, the sporadic miser...
...It is Allen's contention that, because of its insatiable appetite for new material, television has put the comedian on a treadmill to oblivion...
...There is the time in Hawaii when the Marxes were served poi by Duke Kokonomoko...
...Treadmill to Oblivion, written by Fred Allen himself, is essentially about his late and oft-lamented radio show...
...Some of the humor is in lines like "show business, where more chorus girls are kept than promises," "an advertising agency is 85% confusion and 15% commission," and "our musical conductor, Lou Katzman (I hope you won't think I'm a name-dropper...
...Pressed for an apology, Groucho told the Duke: "It doesn't taste like wet cement...
...If anything, he is on a treadmill to greater popularity...
...The fact that there is no place on television for so fine a comedian as Fred Allen is a strong argument in his favor...
...After success on Broadway and in motion pictures, Groucho has now become a household word via television...
...Some readers may think the scripts extremely funny...
...Groucho's philosophy is "nothing sacred," and his spoofing and outright insulting of any and all personalities on his program is matched only by his behavior in real life...
...A great deal of the humor is in the form of reprinted old radio scripts...
...When Houdini asked Groucho if he could see anything in his wide-open mouth, Groucho replied, "Yes, pyorrhea...
...Some of it is in anecdotes...
...Fred Allen is a very funny and a very bitter man...
...There is the time Groucho was asked to help Houdini perform a trick...
...Arthur Marx's story of his father is personal, humorous and revealing...
...It tastes like rat poison...
...For fifteen years, he poked fun at the "memo-merchants," movies, political issues of the day, personalities in the news, and other shows on radio...
...Groucho is said to enjoy his television success far more than the success he achieved on Broadway or in the movies...
...140 pages are reprinted scripts...
...After one taste of it, Groucho shoved his plate away, claiming it tasted like wet cement...
...some may feel that, just as nothing is as dead as yesterday's newspaper, nothing is as unfunny as yesterday's comedy radio script...
...Those who have seen his zany antics in plays like I'll Say She Is, Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, or in movies like A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, will find this hard to believe...
...they have poured it out in a steady stream of hilarity for many years...
...Both the humor and the bitterness are in his book...
...some may welcome them for their value as historical documents...
...Fred Allen and Groucho Marx, having the necessary tinges of philosophy, have not produced humor in fitful sneezes...
...Revealed, too, is Groucho's love of good books, classical music and intellectual friends...
...Also in the book is the pride of father and son in the success of Groucho's quiz program, You Bet Your Life...
...Many people felt that programs like Major Bowes and We, the People were worthwhile if only because they supplied fodder for Allen's devastating satire...
...Reviewed by Harold Flender Writer for Garry Moore, Sid Caesar and other radio-TV comedians MARK TWAIN once said, "Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor...
...At any rate, perhaps the fact that television cannot make better use of Groucho than in a quiz show bolsters rather than refutes Fred Allen's contention that the comedian is headed for oblivion...
...He describes them as "tattered extroverts...
...In fact, there are only 100 pages of commentary...
...It is particularly when attacking studio audiences that Allen reveals his acrid side...
...gamy adolescents ...morons...
Vol. 37 • November 1954 • No. 46
