Mikael Uhlin's Marxology @ marx-brothers.org

Love Happy

This picture began as an attempt to create a solo vehicle for Harpo. The original story, The Sidewalk (which first became Diamonds in the Sidewalk or Diamonds in the Pavement, then Hearts and Diamonds) was suggested by Harpo himself and written for him by Ben Hecht, assisted by gag writer Frank Tashlin. The movie, basically a study in pantomime, recalled the freewheeling pre-talkie days, and the word-of-mouth was so good that the project had attracted Leo McCarey as a potential director. But before any of these events could come to fruition, the bottom dropped out. Tashlin, Hecht and Harpo all blame producer Lester Cowan, who had lied about Diamonds' highly touted value to the studio. With the original script literally dashed to bits, Hecht removed his name from the picture which was now called Love Happy. Tashlin was paired with Mac Benoff to write a framing story and narration for Groucho who - along with Chico - agreed to appear with their beleaguered brother, at this point desperate to salvage his dream project. The overall end result, despite a positive review from The New York Times and other major critics, remained a disappointment to Harpo until his dying day.

However, the order of events isn't as clear as has been suggested. As early as 20 June 1947 (filming commenced more than a year later), Groucho wrote to his daughter Miriam and mentioned a film Ben Hecht was writing for Harpo and Chico. A subsequent letter (of 25 September) already mentions Groucho's guest role as a narrator. His letter of 18 October 1947 speaks once more of the film, describing it as the story Hecht "wrote for Harpo, and finally Chico got in it, and then I suddenly found myself in it for a brief bit." In what was at one time to be an experiment in pantomime, it is wise-cracking Groucho as low rent private eye Sam Grunion who fares best, particularly in a brief opening scene with Marilyn Monroe, whose appearance in the picture upgraded her to co-star billing during re-releases (sometimes under the name Kleptomaniacs).

An interesting thing about this film is how it deals with female cleavages. Groucho claimed that the dress of Marilyn Monroe was so low-cut that he forgot the dialogue, which makes it hard to understand why the cleavage of Ilona Massey (Madame Egilichi) very obviously have been blacked out from extant prints of Love Happy. Steven R. Wright has written to me about this and it happens in the scene where Madame Egilichi is giving Harpo the "whammy" to get him to talk and tell her where the sardine can with the Romanov diamonds is. Close-ups of Ilona shows a big black dot on her chest. Could this have been added already during production? "If this were a French picture I could do it", Groucho says when he attempts to frisk Ilona on the rooftop, and this may be a reference to unwanted censorship of the film.

The DVD-reissue of Love Happy includes additional scenes not found in previous versions. There are more torture scenes with Harpo and Raymond Burr, a scene with Groucho showing photos of himself with Madame Egilichi, an extended scene with Chico with additional narration by Groucho and also some additional footage with the minor romantic couple.

 
The Big Sardine- and Cleavage Mystery