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Go West (1940 film)

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Go West
Theatrical release poster.
Directed byEdward Buzzell
Written byIrving Brecher
Produced byJack Cummings
StarringGroucho Marx
Harpo Marx
Chico Marx
John Carroll
Diana Lewis
CinematographyLeonard Smith
Edited byBlanche Sewell
Music byGeorge Bassman
(orchestrations)
Georgie Stoll
(music direction)
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • December 6, 1940 (1940-12-06)
Running time
80 minutes
CountryTemplate:Film US
LanguageEnglish

Go West (a.k.a. The Marx Brothers Go West) is the 10th Marx Brothers comedy film, in which brothers Groucho, Chico, and Harpo head to the American West and attempt to unite a couple by ensuring that an evil railroad baron is thwarted. The scene is set in Dead Man's Gulch. Groucho is "S. Quentin Quale", Chico is "Joe Panello" and Harpo is "Rusty Panello". It was directed by Edward Buzzell and written by Irving Brecher, who receives the original screenplay credit.

Plot

Confidence man S. Quentin Quale (Groucho) heads west to find his fortune. En route, he meets the crafty but simple brothers Joseph (Chico) and Rusty Panello (Harpo) in a train station, where they manage to steal his money. Quale soon learns the Panello are heading west as well as they been told one can just pick the gold off the ground. Once there, they befriend an old miner named Dan Wilson (Tully Marshall) whose property, Dead Man's Gulch, has no gold. They loan him their last ten dollars so he can go start life anew, and for collateral, he gives them the deed to the Gulch. Unbeknownst to Wilson, the son of his longtime rival, Terry Turner (John Carroll) has contacted the railway to arrange for them to build through the land, making the old man rich and hopefully resolving the feud.

Cast

File:Terryturner.jpg
Like most Marx Brothers films, comedy sequences alternated with light romantic scenes featuring two lovers. In Go West, the lovers are John Carroll and Diana Lewis.

Production

Like other Marx Brothers films, Go West has several musical numbers, including "As If I Didn't Know" and "You Can't Argue With Love" both by Bronislau Kaper and Gus Kahn, "Ridin' The Range" by Roger Edens and Gus Kahn, "From The Land Of The Sky-Blue Water" by Charles Wakefield Cadman and "The Woodpecker Song" by Harold Adamson and Eldo di Lazzaro. (In this song, Chico, playing the piano, takes an orange from Harpo's lunch bag and rolls it on the keys in sync with the melody.)

Groucho was aged 50 during the filming of Go West, and his hairline had begun receding. As such, he took to wearing a toupee throughout the film, as he did the previous film, At the Circus.

Go West Screenwriter Irving Brecher impersonated an ailing Groucho when publicity stills for the film were first taken. Brecher bore a remarkable resemblance to Groucho and is all but unrecognizable in the photos, sporting Groucho's glasses, greasepaint mustache and eyebrows.

Musical numbers

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