“I will not stand for anything that’s crooked or unfair / I’m strictly on the up-and-up, so everyone beware / If any man’s caught taking graft, and I don’t get my share / We stand him up against the wall and pop! goes the weasel,” sings Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) in the Marx Brothers’ sidesplitting 1933 classic, directed by Leo McCarey. Firefly is prime minister of the corrupt, bankrupt state of Freedonia. By the end of Duck Soup, he leads the country into a nonsensical war against neighboring Sylvania, culminating in a visionary, madcap battle sequence. After the film was released, the mayor of the village of Fredonia, New York, complained about the film tainting the town’s reputation. The Marx Brothers’ response? “Our advice is that you change the name of your town. It is hurting our picture.”

Submitted by Giampaolo Bianconi, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance