These aren't among the most popular Marx Brothers movies, but it's hard for me to picture them ever completely failing to amuse me. Not sure I'd have time for both sides of the disc (165 minutes total), I gave priority to AtC, partly because it's a little more highly rated and partly because I had already seen the Flying Karamazov Brothers version of RS.
As befits the '30s, both comedies are about financial desperation. In AtC, a circus owner (Kenny Baker -- not that one) is secretly robbed by the guy he owes money (James Burke), who plans to use the "unpaid" debt as an excuse to take over the circus. Luckily, a circus employee (Chico) had already invited an attorney associate (Groucho), who could serve as a detective in a pinch. If they can't find the loot, they can try to make up the difference by selling entertainment to the owner's estranged rich aunt (Margaret Dumont). In RS, a struggling play producer (Groucho) and his troupe and friends have been freeloading at a hotel managed by his brother-in-law (Cliff Dunstan), but the irascible director (Donald MacBride) is about to kick them out. They persuade a newly arriving playwright (Frank Albertson) to feign illness, delaying the eviction until they hopefully make money from his play.
RS has the distinction of being the only Marx Brothers movie not written specifically for them, which may explain its more mediocre reception. Maybe we'd like it better with a different cast, since we'd anticipate less humor or at least a different brand thereof. It certainly misses the rapid-fire quips associated with Groucho. Chico gets few opportunities for chicanery. Harpo is still silent, but he doesn't do any impossible antics. In general, the brothers don't express their usual chemistry. Rarely do they appear to be making the story their own, if you will.
You can tell it's based on a play. Not only is most of the action in one room, but we never meet the many actors said to be holed up elsewhere in the hotel, except for one woman (Lucille Ball, not trying to be funny for a change). Only the ending is likely to deviate significantly from the original script.
If RS has one advantage over AtC, it's a slightly more complex plot. It might be a tad smarter from a noncomedic standpoint. Perhaps that's why it's been redone a few different ways. OK, it also has the advantage of not depicting a bunch of people in a dated fashion. I wouldn't have called AtC racist in my childhood, but those Black characters wouldn't fly now. OTOH, the circus midget (Jerry Maren, who was in the Lollipop Guild that year) doesn't do anything clownish; the humor surrounding him consists mainly of regular-sized people crowding into his tiny living space.
AtC is best remembered for Groucho singing "Lydia the Tattooed Lady." There are at least three other songs, but you're not likely to encounter them elsewhere. And while Lydia herself is absent, we get another staple of Marx Brothers fare: women, whom Groucho alternately pursues and insults. Apart from the owner's aunt, there's his girlfriend (Florence Rice) and the villain's (Eve Arden). By contrast, RS has no singing other than a sample of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and neither Lucy nor the playwright's girlfriend (Ann Miller) garners any special attention from the habitual lotharios.
Do things get downright wild with the circus? Well, basically, yet I had expected a bit more havoc before and even during the third act. I was also disappointed in how long it took for each of the brothers to show up in the first place. They may have been slowing down a bit in their later pictures; A Night in Casablanca had some of the same issues.
At any rate, this double feature sufficed to cleanse my palate. I could watch something dark and/or broody next. Not that I've decided to.
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