It’s a homecoming for America’s funniest family.
The Museum of the Moving Image presents Marx Brothers Double Feature on Saturday, June 29, at 12:30 pm.
Two films that were shot at Paramount’s legendary Astoria studio – The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers – will screen with introductions by Marx Brothers historian, podcaster, and author Noah Diamond and Muppet historian Craig Shemin.
General admission is $15, but seniors and students pay $11, while youth (ages three to 17) can attend for $9.
Released in 1929, The Cocoanuts portrays hijinx and zaniness at a Florida resort during the Sunshine State’s 1920s land boom. It’s based on a stage play by Morrie Ryskind and George S. Kaufman.
Released in 1930, Animal Crackers features an endless series of jokes at a high-society, Long Island soiree thrown by the stuffy Mrs. Rittenhouse. In one famous scene, Groucho’s character, Captain Jeffrey Spaulding, explains how he shot an elephant in his pajamas.
Same brothers. Same studio. These movies are also linked because the stars filmed The Cocoanuts during the day and then headed to Broadway to perform the original stage production of Animal Crackers at night. At the time, movies were replacing plays in popularity and financial viability.
Looks like a fun afternoon, but what’s the “homecoming” from the first line?
The Marx Brothers grew up in Manhattan, but they owe their success to Queens. Leonard, Adolph, Julius, Milton, and Herbert (aka Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo) filmed their first movies with Paramount in Astoria and they lived on 134th Street in Richmond Hill in the early 1920s. Their German immigrant parents bought the home so the boys would have a crash pad between shows. (The parents are buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale.)
Paramount relocated to California in 1932, and so did the Marx Brothers. They lived there for the rest of their lives, but achieved mortality back in Astoria where The Marx, a seven-story, 33-unit residential complex on 35th Street recently went on line.
Museum of the Moving Image is at 36-01 35th Ave. in Astoria’s Kaufman Arts District.
Editor’s note: This afternoon is part of the long-running Queens on Screen program, which periodically screens movies that were filmed in the World’s Most Delicious Borough.
Top image: Museum of the Moving Image;
middle image: Library of Congress;
bottom image: Rob MacKay