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For the Love of Ivy
Groucho, Harpo and Chico try their best to cheat on the horses but with limited success. Maureen O'Sullivan, one of the most beautiful and underrated of the MGM stars, gives a lively performance here as Judy Standish. She's appealing, strong-willed, yet with a vulnerable streak that found its ultimate expression in the waifishness of her daughter Mia Farrow. O'Sullivan's blonde beauty seems designed to play off both Allan Jones' clean-cut all American appeal, but also the garish, sexually charged performance of Groucho as Dr. Hackenbush. Was there ever a more suggestive actor in the movies? In the 30s, there was Clark Gable, and there was Groucho for when you wanted to get serious about the body. When a guy taunts him, "Are you a man or a mouse?" Groucho doesn't turn a hair, just snaps out, "Throw a piece of cheese on the floor and you'll find out," exactly the kind of repartee you'd get on a good day at Craig's List. <
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>His grimaces, astonished glances, the quick swivel and point of his chin when challenged (or aroused), his bristling hair and beetle-like spectacles, here combine with the stethoscope of his "medical fantasy" to produce a vision of the id gone wild. <
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>They don't call it a day at "the races" for nothing, for few MGM films had as many black actors working alongside the white ones. True racial harmony. The magical moment here is the only appearance (as far as I know) in a full length film of the incandescent Ellington singer Ivie Anderson, singing "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm." I know, what a title! But it is one of the most dazzling musical numbers ever captured on film. Ivie Anderson (here billed as "Ivy," but it seems she was one who honestly didn't care that much who spelled her name wrong or right) had one of the world's great voices, and she's given her due in this Sam Wood-directed number. Alone it would be worth buying just for this track. (There's also an Ellington short with Anderson singing Arlen's "Stormy Weather," but this is miles better.)

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Dr. Hackenbush at your service
The Marx Brothers take over a sanitarium in Florida and get involved in the horse races, all to good avail. Groucho is horse doctor Hugo Z. Hackenbush, and the best routine is when he gives Chico an examination: "Either he's dead or my watch has stopped." Another good bit: <
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>Nurse: Doctor, I need your O.K. on this form. <
>Groucho: I'm too busy now. I'll write the O now; come back <
> later for the K. <
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>Not as successful as HORSEFEATHERS, NIGHT AT THE OPERA, or DUCK SOUP, but better than the rest. (It was all down hill after this.) There are the usual forgettable singing routines included.

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Diluted Marxian Madness
For all of its classic comedy, "A Day at the Races" (1937) signals the beginning of the Marx Brothers' creative decline after the death of producer Irving Thalberg. What clicked in "A Night at the Opera" doesn't gel nearly as well in this uneven MGM production. Running almost two hours, "A Day at the Races" suffers from excessive musical numbers and subplots that dilute some of the Marxes' best material. This film cries for some major editing -- preferably a deletion of the "Water Carnival" ballet and the ludicrous "All God's Children Got Rhythm" number. If Thalberg had lived, "A Day at the Races" might have been a worthy follow-up to "A Night at the Opera." Instead, the brilliance of Groucho, Chico and particularly Harpo is undermined by obvious studio tampering.