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With more plot and fewer girls than most Marx Brothers comedies, Duck Soup has the disadvantage of adding nothing to vary the essential technique of their efforts. It exhibits Chico & Zeppo as usual, Groucho less flatteringly than in Horsefeathers. Admirers of Harpo should be particularly pleased with his horrid actions in Duck Soup. He carries a plumber's blow torch for a cigaret lighter, conducts a wordless telephone conversation by means of horns and bells, irritates a lemonade vendor by doing sleight-of-hand with his straw hat. Good shot: Harpo, impersonating Groucho in order to steal "war plans," trying to convince Groucho that he is a reflection in a mirror when the two meet in a hallway.
Only Yesterday (Universal). John Boles herein occupies a role which demonstrates some of the dangers of absentmindedness. A pompous young lieutenant, at a country club dance, meets an impressionable Virginia belle (Margaret Sullavan), promptly seduces her, then goes to France without bothering to say goodbye.
When the girl greets him on his return, he has forgotten her face. Ten years later he meets her at a New Year's party and spends another night in her company, still ignorant of her identity. The result of their first meeting was an illegitimate child. Miss Sullavan becomes this sea son's most long suffering heroine by dying of heart disease just before the picture ends, after sending a long letter to her lieutenant, now a stockbroker ruined by the Crash. More sadly than reproachfully, she reminds him of her existence and tells him that he has a son. The picture, told in a long flashback, starts when Lieutenant Emerson, sitting down at his desk with the intention of shooting himself, sees the letter. When he is through reading, he has forgotten about suicide.
Only Yesterday—the title was borrowed from Frederick Lewis Allen's historical review of the 1920's—may tax the credulity of supercilious cinemaddicts. It should please those who last year admired Director John Stahl's Back Street. Margaret Sullavan, a young Virginia actress given the lead in Universal's most ambitious production of the season after two seasons of stock and two on the Manhattan stage (A Modern Virgin, Chrysalis), gives a fluent performance, the more remarkable because her Southern accent sounds neither negroid nor vanilla.
*Mayor Harry B. Hickey of Fredonia, N. Y. protested to the Marxes: "The name of Fredonia has been without a blot since 1817. I feel it is my duty as Mayor to question your intentions in using the name of our city in your picture." Back cracked the Marxes: "Your excellency: Our advice is that you change the name of your town. It is hurting our picture. Anyhow, what makes you think you are Mayor of Fredonia? Do you wear a black moustache, play the harp, speak with an Italian accent or chase girls like Harpo? We are certain you do not. Therefore we must be Mayor of Fredonia, not you. The old gray Mayor ain't what he used to be."