Film History 

A book of visual and verbal gems from the Marx Brothers movies with over 600 illustrations. Remember the stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera? The tutsie-fruitsie scene from Day at the Races? The auction scene from the Cocoanuts? Here they are. Not publicity stills but frame-by-frame blow-ups of the scenes in their hilarious entirety, with the actual dialogue from the soundtrack. WHY A DUCK? (Chico's wacky Italinate mispronunciation of "Viaduct") shows all the great comic sequences from the nine films the brothers Marx made during the 1930s and 40s. MONKEY BUSINESS, HORSE FEATHERS, DUCK SOUP, BIG STORE, AT THE CIRCUS and GO WEST, presented in a unique form which faithfully translates the filmed original to the book page. Richard Shepard (1923-1998), culture critic for the New York Times from 1962-1969, known for his amiably down-to-earth manner, has added a one-of-a kind personal note - telling of his own experience in seeing the Marx Bros. films when they first hit the unsuspecting world.