Marxism and the Jew
Oct. 12th, 2006 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
porphyryTCM has been showing old episodes of the Dick Cavett show related to their film line-up. Tonight I saw (and for a change heard) the Groucho Marx interview. Very powerful nostalgia since I had seen the show at its original broadcast. I decided then that Groucho wasn't funny--well I must have been about 5 or 6 so perhaps it is forgivable.
One thing he said was interesting, but not per se. He said, '[Thalberg] was a pure-bred Jew from Brooklyn.' The word 'Jew' was edited out of the tape--I presume by the original censors in the 1960s. Surely they didn't think it was a slur, coming as it did from Goucho? Perhaps they just thought the fact that Jews existed in the world was too awful to reveal to the American public?
Puzzling.
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Groucho said that the two films Thalberg produced--Day at the Races & Night at the Opera--were by far their best work. I understand why he said that and they are certianly fine films--but I would still argue that Duck Soup is the greatest film comedy ever made--well, that or Strangelove--hard to choose between films so different.
One thing he said was interesting, but not per se. He said, '[Thalberg] was a pure-bred Jew from Brooklyn.' The word 'Jew' was edited out of the tape--I presume by the original censors in the 1960s. Surely they didn't think it was a slur, coming as it did from Goucho? Perhaps they just thought the fact that Jews existed in the world was too awful to reveal to the American public?
Puzzling.
___________________________________________
Groucho said that the two films Thalberg produced--Day at the Races & Night at the Opera--were by far their best work. I understand why he said that and they are certianly fine films--but I would still argue that Duck Soup is the greatest film comedy ever made--well, that or Strangelove--hard to choose between films so different.
