The Big Store

The Big Store
Theatrical poster for Big Store (1941)
Directed by	Charles Reisner
Produced by	Louis K. Sidney
Written by	Nat Perrin (story) Sid Kuller Hal Fimberg Ray Golden
Starring	Groucho Marx Chico Marx Harpo Marx Tony Martin Virginia Grey Margaret Dumont Virginia O'Brien
Music by	Hal Borne Georgie Stoll (musical direction) Earl Brent (adaptation) Arthur Appell (dance direction)
Cinematography	Charles Lawton Jr.
Editing by	Conrad A. Nervig
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	June 20, 1941
Running time	83 min.
Language	English

The Big Store (1941) is a Marx Brothers comedy film in which Groucho, Chico and Harpo work to save the Phelps Department Store, owned by Martha Phelps (Margaret Dumont). Groucho plays her detective and bodyguard Wolf J. Flywheel, a character name originating from the Marx-Perrin radio show Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel in the early 1930s.

It was advertised as their last ever film, and it was the last of five films made under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. However, they would return to the screen in A Night in Casablanca (1946) and Love Happy (1949).

The Big Store co-starred long-time Marx Brothers' foil Margaret Dumont as well as the love interests, Tony Martin and Virginia Grey. The Big Store was Dumont's final film with the Marx Brothers. The "heavy" was Mr. Grover, played by Douglass Dumbrille, who had played a similar role in A Day at the Races.

In 2011, Rowse Honey used the musical number played by Chico and Harpo on the piano, Mamma Yo Quiero, in their TV advert.

Tagline: "Where everything is a good buy. Goodbye!"

Plot

Store manager Grover wants to kill heir Tommy Rogers before he can sell his share of the venerable Phelps Department Store. Against his better judgement he hires Groucho as a floorwalker. Between Tommy wooing his sweetheart and Groucho romancing Mrs. Phelps, the brothers thwart the plot to place a gun in a photographer's camera.

The film has two extended scenes, one of them in the store's bed department, which has all kinds of novel beds that come out of the walls. An Italian family walks in with 12 children, and Groucho asks the father (Henry Armetta) what other hobbies he has got. Six of the kids promptly disappear in a set of bunk beds. While the father pleads for the return of his children, three more large families, a Swedish one with a dozen blond children, another with Chinese children and finally Native American children, arrive, and soon all is chaos.

The second lengthy scene takes place near the end of the film: Groucho, Chico and Harpo escape their pursuers during a madcap chase through the entire store, using the elevator, a staircase, chandeliers, roller skates, a mail chute and a bicycle. This chase involves an unusual amount of Mack Sennett-type slapstick stunts for a Marx Brothers movie.

There is one gag which breaks the fourth wall, during the "Sing While You Sell" sequence: while Groucho is narrating a fashion show, he asides "This is a bright red dress, but Technicolor is so expensive." Later in the film, Groucho breaks the fourth wall again when he comments "I told you in the first reel [Grover] was a crook."

Musical numbers

As is typical for MGM Marx Brothers films, the movie contains elaborate production numbers, such as the upbeat "Sing While You Sell," led by an all-singing, all-dancing Groucho, and "Tenement Symphony" sung by Tony Martin and a boys' choir. The screenwriting team of Kuller, Golden and Fimberg also supplied the lyrics to Hal Borne's original music. Also of note is that this is the second film in which an instrumental version of "Cosi-Cosa" off "A Night at the Opera" can be heard (playing during the moving bed scene); the first being "A Day at the Races."

• "Tenement Symphony"- Tony Martin, onstage choir and orchestra, featuring Chico and Harpo
• "Sing While You Sell"- Groucho, Six Hits and a Miss singing group, with other cast members, including Virginia O'Brien, and with Harpo as a drum-beating snake charmer
• "Rock-a-bye Baby"- Virginia O'Brien
• "If It's You"- Tony Martin (music & lyrics by Ben Oakland, Artie Shaw & Milton Drake)
• "Mama Yo Quiero"- Chico and Harpo (piano duet)
• "Mozart's Sonata in C major" - Harpo (harp)
• "Beethoven's Minuet" - Harpo (harp/cello/violin, although perhaps supplied by noted jazz violinist Georgie Stoll^{[citation needed]})

Cast

• Groucho Marx - Wolf J. Flywheel
• Harpo Marx - Wacky
• Chico Marx - Ravelli
• Tony Martin - Tommy Rogers
• Virginia Grey - Joan Sutton
• Margaret Dumont - Martha Phelps
• Douglas Dumbrille Mr. Grover
• William Tannen Fred Sutton
• Henry Armetta - Giuseppe
• Anna Demetrio - Maria
• Marion Martin - Peggy Arden
• Paul Stanton - Arthur Hastings
• Russell Hicks - George Hastings
• Bradley Page - Duke
• Virginia O'Brien - Kitty
• Six Hits and a Miss

External links

• The Big Store at the Internet Movie Database
• The Big Store at AllRovi
• The Big Store at the TCM Movie Database