SummaryDuring the Florida land boom, The Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land, thwart a jewel robbery, and generally act like themselves.
Directed By:Robert Florey, Joseph Santley
Written By:George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind
The Cocoanuts
Metascore
Generally Favorable
69
User score
Generally Favorable
6.5
My Score
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
86% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
14% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
75
This is a crude, shapeless talkie, a technically unsophisticated film in which the sound is static and the camera immobile, with the comedians leaping into the set scenes. Yet the boys are there in all their frenetic glory.
75
Only about half of 1929's The Cocoanuts, an early sound-era comedy, was entrusted to the Marx brothers' vaudevillian antics; the rest was left to drippy Irving Berlin songs, kick-lines of bathing beauties, and a half-baked subplot about a stolen necklace. Yet the good scenes establish the Marx dynamic to hilarious effect.
75
An eminently watchable antique, this was the Marx Brothers' first film — a literal recording of their Broadway smash hit.
70
That's all it has --comedy-- but that's enough. [29 May 1929, p.14]
70
It shows its age, what with indistinct sound, fluffed lines, quaint choreography, quainter songs, a stilted supporting cast and positively arthritic direction. But the Brothers' energy and madness is never in question: when the laughs come, they come loud and long.
70
Fun puts melody in the shade in the audible pictorial transcription of the musical comedy The Cocoanuts.
60
The material hasn't been paced for the screen; there are dead spots (without even background music), but there are also a lot of funny verbal routines and a musical burlesque of Carmen, and Harpo, as a fiendish pickpocket, is much faster (and less aesthetic and self-conscious and innocent) than in the Brothers' later comedies.
User score
Generally Favorable
50% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
33% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
17% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Mar 4, 2021
8
This is supposed to be one of their best. I was never their biggest fan, and I still feel some aversion. Groucho is over-rated. It is interesting though to see them interact, and kudos for their physical comedy. I liked seeing the song and dance numbers, which have a classic Broadway musical feel. It is all still very enjoyable today.
Production Company:
- Paramount Pictures
Release Date:Aug 3, 1929
Duration:1 h 36 m
Rating:TV-G
Tagline:See it three times and even then you won't get them all. (Print Ad, Black River Democrat, Lowville, NY 2 January 1930)
Awards
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 2 Nominations
