Go West/The Big Store (1940)

Groucho, Chico, Harpo – all certifiably wacko in a double dip of comedies.

The Marxmen Go West (Side A) to where the sun always shines, the fun never sets and where they outwit a land grabber. Highlights include the $1 scam, the stagecoach ride, Chico and Harpo bellying up to the bar and the train-chase finale. What fools these mortals be and what fuels they need. The boys chop up passenger cars to get wood to stoke the locomotive.

They go east in The Big Store (Side B), becoming detectives-cum-bodyguards for a department store. Crime is afoot in the store or, if in the Fabrics Department, by the yard. Still, our sleuths don’t have a clue except in laughing matters. Chico and Harpo share a piano keyboard, beds disappear into walls, roller skates provide in-store mobility and Groucho warbles Sing While You Sell.

163 minutes, B&W