Hello, I Must be Going
Page 53
GROUCHO
What about Maude?
WOODY ALLEN
Well, she’s a funny actress.
GROUCHO
You bet she is.
WOODY ALLEN
All in the Family would be a very typical play on Broadway.
GROUCHO
The wife bothers me. She’s just too stupid.
WOODY ALLEN
She’s funny. Like Art Carney on the Jackie Gleason show. Do you know Art Carney?
GROUCHO
Of course.
WOODY ALLEN
He was hilarious when he played stupid with Gleason.
GROUCHO
But Carney is a good actor.
WOODY ALLEN
Sure. He and Jackie Gleason did some fabulous things on television.
GROUCHO
I did some unfunny things with Gleason—a couple of shows. One was good, and one was lousy. He used to drink half a gallon of booze before he went on.
WOODY ALLEN
Do you ever see S. J. Perelman?
GROUCHO
Not so much.
WOODY ALLEN
Do you ever see Max Gordon?
GROUCHO
No. You know, he came home one night, and his wife, Mary, was painting an apple. He came home around midnight, and he was hungry. So he looked around for something to eat, and couldn’t find anything. He opened the icebox, and his wife had a half an apple in there that she was painting. So he ate the other half. Do you know him?
WOODY ALLEN
Oh, sure. I’ve known him for years. He’s a wonderful old-fashioned character. So who do you see in New York?
GROUCHO
I see Comden and Green and Goddard Lieberson, Dick Cavett, and Goody Ace. I see a few people like that. They’re people I’m fond of. I’m never here very long, anyhow. I remember when the market crashed in 1929. Did you know Max Gordon’s real name is Salpeter?
WOODY ALLEN
Yes, I read it in his book.
GROUCHO
He wrote a book?
WOODY ALLEN
Oh, sure, Max has a book—Max Gordon Presents, it’s called.
GROUCHO
I didn’t know Max Gordon could write.
WOODY ALLEN
He’s got a book, though. It’s a book of his experiences.
GROUCHO
I used to go around with him in Great Neck. We used to play golf together. The market was so high then, everybody was making a million dollars. Then one day the crash came in ’29, and he was living in New York, and I was living in Great Neck. I was doing Animal Crackers, I think. And he calls me up and says, “Marx”—that’s the way he talks—“this is Salpeter. The jig is up.” And hung up. I lost $250,000 that week.
WOODY ALLEN
How were you in the market? Were you really badly hurt?
GROUCHO
I was wiped out. But I was getting a thousand dollars a week for Animal Crackers, so I recovered very quickly.
WOODY ALLEN Over the years, have you observed any sort of diet?
GROUCHO I eat anything I want. Even an occasional girl.
WOODY ALLEN I want to get back to Charlie Chaplin. Were you friends years ago?
GROUCHO
Yes. I met him over sixty years ago in Canada. I tried to look at one of his movies a couple of weeks ago, but Chaplin’s not very funny anymore.
WOODY ALLEN
I think he had three great films. They had a revival of all of his films here, and three of them I think are still funny, but the others are not. Well, three and a half, I guess. There’s certain of them I find are too mawkish. I like Modern Times, City Lights, and The Gold Rush. The others just seem so tedious to me. I don’t like The Great Dictator or Monsieur Verdoux or Limelight. Did you know Keaton?
GROUCHO Yeah.
WOODY ALLEN Did you find him funny?
GROUCHO
Yeah. He used to work for Harpo when we were at M-G-M. He put in gags.
WOODY ALLEN
Did you think he was funny in his movies? The Navigator or The General?
GROUCHO
Yes. I thought The Navigator was great. But, you know, with the exception of you, there are no more comedians around.
WOODY ALLEN
For some reason, nobody’s making comedy films now. I don’t know why. People ask me that question all the time, but I don’t know why they’re not.
GROUCHO
They’re hard to make.
WOODY ALLEN
Yeah. Physically hard, you mean. There’s just nobody trying to make comedy films. For a few years there was Jerry Lewis.
GROUCHO
They asked me in France when I was over there last summer what I thought of Lewis, and I said he was very good when he was with Dino Martin.
WOODY ALLEN
What I don’t understand is this: why is it that at one time there were six, eight, or ten comedians of your stature—Keaton, Chaplin, you, Fields—and why there should be a group of them in one period of time, and then all of a sudden, nothing?
GROUCHO
Don’t you think that when vaudeville disappeared that that had something to do with it? There was no place to be funny anymore when vaudeville died.
WOODY ALLEN
Those were all vaudeville comedians, all music hall comedians. I guess it’s just an incredible thing to me. I’m just amazed by the fact that it was like a renaissance, or the impressionist painters—you know, they all came at once. Did you ever see any Bob Hope movies you’ve liked?
GROUCHO
He’s just made one—Cancel My Reservation. I didn’t see it yet.
WOODY ALLEN
What about twenty years ago, in the forties or fifties?
GROUCHO
I think years ago when he worked with Crosby, they worked well together. The audience liked them. Hope’s a funny man and Bing’s a good singer.
WOODY ALLEN
Now, I never found Harold Lloyd funny. Or Laurel and Hardy.
GROUCHO
All Harold Lloyd ever did was climb up buildings.
WOODY ALLEN
So what was the difference between Chaplin and Keaton? Why was Chaplin more popular than Keaton?
GROUCHO
I think Keaton had a couple of good, funny pictures, and I think Chaplin had many of them.
WOODY ALLEN
You think so? You think all those two-reelers and shorts were funny?
GROUCHO
No, but I remember when Chaplin did one called Easy Street, when he’s a policeman.
WOODY ALLEN
Right. That’s a great one.
GROUCHO
It’s a funny picture. Really funny.
WOODY ALLEN
It’s very short. I think Keaton was a better filmmaker but Chaplin was a funnier man.
GROUCHO
Maybe the day of the comedian is over, except for you.
WOODY ALLEN
Maybe, I don’t know. What about Tati? Jacques Tati?
GROUCHO
The tall guy? He’s made one funny picture, or maybe two, I don’t know. I liked Hulot’s Holiday. But he did one not long ago, and I hear it’s not good.
I
Traffic.
GROUCHO
That’s right. You did that interview with him in Paris.
WOODY ALLEN
Now I want to hear how you met Chaplin in Canada.
GROUCHO
It’s not much of a story. This is way before your time. There were two circuits out there, the Pantages and the Sullivan-Considine. You’ve never heard of either of these because you’re too young.
WOODY ALLEN
I’ve heard of the Pantages.
GROUCHO
Anyway, we were playing in Canada and Chaplin was playing in Canada. He was doing an act called A Night at the Club. It was a very funny act. I remember they had a lady dowager in the act and she used to sing. While she was singing, Chaplin was chewing on an apple and spitting thi
s stuff in her face. This was the kind of comedy that he was doing sixty years ago.
Well, all my brothers were pool players. Not professional, but good. When we got to Winnipeg, the boys all disappeared looking for a poolroom. We had about a three-hour wait there before we started toward the coast. Since I don’t play pool, and I don’t gamble, and I don’t play cards—I smoke occasionally, just enough to cough—I passed this dump theatre, this Sullivan-Considine theatre. I’m walking past there, and I hear the most tremendous roars of laughter. So I paid ten cents and I went in. It was the greatest thing I’d ever seen.
WOODY ALLEN
Why was it the greatest thing you’d ever seen?
GROUCHO
He was so funny.
WOODY ALLEN
What was he doing?
GROUCHO
Crazy things. He was walking around kind of funny. Like this. (Groucho demonstrates)
WOODY ALLEN What did the others do?
GROUCHO
Well, I don’t remember after so many years. But I do know that we opened in Winnipeg with Chaplin. He was on the Sullivan-Considine Circuit and we were on the Pantages Circuit. He had a shirt that he wore for the whole six weeks ’cause he was only getting twenty-five dollars a week, and he didn’t want to spend any money on getting a clean shirt. We got acquainted with him. I went backstage the following week to visit him and tell him how wonderful he was. Then, each week we would be in the same towns in Canada. I can’t remember all the towns ’cause this is a hell of a long time ago, but we used to go to the whorehouses together.
WOODY ALLEN
Um-hmm.
GROUCHO
Because there was no place for an actor to go in those towns except, if you were lucky maybe, you’d pick up a girl. But as a rule, it wasn’t a girl. You’d have to go to a hookshop, and then we got very well acquainted. Not together. I mean, I wasn’t with him. I was with him, but not…
WOODY ALLEN
I understand. Now at that point he had never made a movie.
GROUCHO
No. He’d never made anything.
WOODY ALLEN
Did he speak about movies at all? Did he say that he wanted to make them?
GROUCHO
No. It never occurred to him. He was a big hit in his act. Then, when we got to Seattle, Mack Sennett saw Chaplin in A Night at the Club, and he offered to sign him up. I was talking to Chaplin one day and I said, “I understand you were offered a job with Mack Sennett and he offered you $200 a week.” And he said, “I turned it down.” I said, “You must be crazy! You turned down $200 a week for this lousy vaudeville act you’re only getting twenty-five dollars a week for?” He said, “I figured it out. Nobody could be worth $200 a week. And if I don’t make good, where will I be? So I turned him down. I wouldn’t take the job.” He was afraid, and he went back to England after that. Now, six years passed, and I’m playing the Orpheum Circuit…
WOODY ALLEN
I have to stop you for a second. Would you have felt happy if Sennett had made you an offer to appear in films at that time?
GROUCHO
No. I was working with my brothers, but they were busy shooting pool.
WOODY ALLEN
Right. But suppose Sennett had wanted all of you to work in pictures. What would you have thought at the time? Would you have accepted Sennett’s offer and worked in silent pictures?
GROUCHO
Probably not.
WOODY ALLEN
Why not?
GROUCHO
Because we didn’t think we were good enough for $200 a week.
WOODY ALLEN
But that’s the same reason Chaplin had!
GROUCHO
Yes!
WOODY ALLEN
But what I want to get at here is, do you think that the Marx Brothers could have played in silent movies? Chaplin played in silent films, obviously. You didn’t get into films until there were talking pictures. Do you think you guys could have been funny—could you have played in silent pictures?
GROUCHO
In the first place, Harpo didn’t talk at all in the act.
WOODY ALLEN
That’s a good point.
GROUCHO
And Chico didn’t talk if he could find a dame.
WOODY ALLEN
Um-hmm.
GROUCHO
So the only one who really talked was me.
WOODY ALLEN
Well, you’re the kingpin of the act. So do you think that if Mack Sennett had wanted you to be in pictures that the Marx Brothers could have been funny in silent pictures?
GROUCHO
We did make a silent picture. And it was the worst turkey of all time.
WOODY ALLEN
When?
GROUCHO
Around 1921. We each put up a thousand dollars and made it in New Jersey. We shot most of it on a vacant lot next to the theatre where we were playing.
WOODY ALLEN
What was it called?
GROUCHO
Humorisk. I don’t remember much about it except that I was the villain, and it only played once at a kids’ matinee in the Bronx. I wish I could find a copy of it. Anyway, we were more interested in Broadway than movies.
WOODY ALLEN
Broadway was definitely bigger then. But, as you were going to say, six years later Chaplin comes back…
GROUCHO
Chaplin comes back, and we’re playing the Orpheum Circuit. I’m talking, and Chico’s talking, and Harpo had nothing to say. He did pantomime mostly. And it was funny. So in Los Angeles we get an invitation from Chaplin, who by now is a movie star. He was so rich by this time, he had bought the Mary Pickford home. She was a big star at the studio you’re going to go to in Hollywood soon. So, he invited us to this house, and there was a butler in back of each chair and solid gold plates. We had the most magnificent meal! But when he first said to me, “Nobody can make good for $200,” I knew he was crazy or something. Or had no confidence in appearing in pictures. Well, he became the greatest thing in pictures, and we were still playing small-time vaudeville.
I
Did Chaplin seem different after his great success?
GROUCHO
He seemed richer.
WOODY ALLEN
You have no interest in writing anything anymore?
GROUCHO
I wrote five books. That was enough.
WOODY ALLEN
How many of them have I seen? I saw Memoirs of a Mangy Lover and…
GROUCHO
That was a lousy one; I mean a mangy one.
WOODY ALLEN
I’ve read The Groucho Letters, but I wasn’t thinking of that so much as a book. What was the earlier one?
I
Beds, Many Happy Returns, and Groucho and Me.
WOODY ALLEN
Beds is the one I meant. It’s out of print, but somebody I know has a copy of Beds…
GROUCHO
I don’t even have a copy of it. I can’t find it. It’s a thin book.
WOODY ALLEN
Are you planning to do any more movies?
GROUCHO
Erin’s busy putting together a documentary about me. In the meantime I plan on dying.
WOODY ALLEN
Well, that’s laying it on the line! Do you have a copy of Animal Crackers?
GROUCHO
Nobody has.
WOODY ALLEN
Why hasn’t Animal Crackers been seen?
GROUCHO
It’s very simple. George Kaufman willed this picture to his adopted daughter, a very nice woman who sounds just like him when she talks. But it belongs to the Kaufman estate, and they can’t get together with Universal.
WOODY ALLEN
All these years? But I saw it at a movie house, I’d say twenty-five years ago, and I haven’t seen it since.
GROUCHO
We get mail all the time saying, “Why can’t we see Animal Crackers?”
WOODY ALLEN
I have a script of it—I assume you do too. Didn’t you do something from Animal Crackers on a Hollywood Palace program about ten years ago? You did a funny monologue on the show, too. You had just gone to Paris, and you had met Bardot, or you were going to meet Bardot.
GROUCHO
I have no recollection of that. My memory’s lousy.
WOODY ALLEN
Well, you seem to be full of stories of thirty-five or forty years ago, and that amazes me. Do you still practice the guitar?
GROUCHO
No. I don’t do anything.
WOODY ALLEN
Nothing at all? You don’t watch baseball?
GROUCHO
No. I have no interest in baseball. I don’t know the teams. You know, if they say Memphis beat Dallas, I don’t know any of these teams. So how can you root for something when you don’t know who’s playing?
WOODY ALLEN
I remember being at your home a few years ago, and you were talking about the Dodgers. You were a big fan at that time—a big fan of Sandy Koufax.
GROUCHO
I’m still a fan of Sandy Koufax, but he’s been out of baseball for years!
WOODY ALLEN
I know, but when you’re a baseball fan your whole life, it’s hard to turn it off. So, what have you been doing?
GROUCHO
Nothing. And I’m crazy about it.
WOODY ALLEN
Do you get up every day and read the Times?
GROUCHO
The New York Times? No. I only get it on Sunday. I can’t take reading the news all week. It’s just too much. Do you read it every day?
WOODY ALLEN
I read it every day, yeah. I don’t like the news too much, either. But I read it every day.
GROUCHO
Did I show you my Carnegie Hall lighter?
WOODY ALLEN
Dunhill, right? I must tell you that when they announced your concert at Carnegie Hall, I was so surprised at the speed the thing sold out. I suspected that you would have a following that would want to see it, but what sells out at Carnegie Hall are music and folk acts, you know, and those kinds of things—rock acts. But yours was a quick, sudden sellout, and I was so surprised that it would go that quickly. It was just amazing.
GROUCHO
They turned away three thousand people that night.
WOODY ALLEN
I know. People were offering a lot of money for tickets.
GROUCHO
That’s right. And also for my life.
WOODY ALLEN
I think it’s important that you work now. I think that your public at this point is as big as it ever was, if not bigger. It’s conceivable that your public is bigger now, because all the young people, all the college people, have been brought up to date on it, and all the middle Americans have seen the quiz program. They showed film clips during your concert, didn’t they?