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Go West (film)
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Go West (1940) was the 10th Marx Brothers comedy film, in which the three 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 and others.
There is a confrontation between Harpo and Red Baxter (Robert Barratt), in classic Western style, as they stride together in the saloon.
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Encyclopedia
Go West (1940) was the 10th Marx Brothers comedy film, in which the three 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 and others.
There is a confrontation between Harpo and Red Baxter (Robert Barratt), in classic Western style, as they stride together in the saloon. The patrons laugh when Harpo draws a whisk broom instead of a pistol--but he nearly takes Baxter's head off when the broom fires! In the process of recovering a stolen deed, Groucho and Chico are plied with liquor by the statuesque Lulubelle (June McClory) and her sisters. The tipsy Groucho sings (to the tune of Oh Susanna) "Oh, I come from Alabama with a bottle on my hip/If I drink six more mint juleps I sure am gonna slip!"
The film also contains amazing stunts on a moving steam train when the brothers try to separate the carriages and leave the bad guys stranded behind them. This progresses to a stage when they want to stop the train. They've tied up the engineer, and Chico asks him how to stop it; he says "Brake! The brake!" The literal-minded Harpo breaks the brake! Deciding instead to extinguish the fire, one of them goes with a bucket to draw water from a barrel. The viewers can see the other side of the barrel is labelled "kerosene". Once this is thrown on the fire with dramatic results Groucho says "If that's water I'm glad I never touch the stuff". Now they decide to go faster and end up off the tracks for a while and ramming into a house and farm. Then Harpo begins to tear apart the wooden carriages and using it to build up the fire. At one point, Groucho faces the camera and quips, pointing at the bandanna over the engineer's mouth, "This is the best gag in the picture!"
The brothers win the race, but when the train stops the entire framework has benn gutted out and used as firewood. Harpo is honored by being selected to drive the golden spike à la Leland Stanford, but on his backswing with the sledgehammer he drives a railroad executive into the ground instead!
Like other Marx Brothers films, the movie has many 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.)
A poster for the film appears on the right hand side of the album art for Elton John's album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player.
Musical numbers
Cast
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