The Big Store (1941)

Calificación de los usuarios:

6.4/10   

Director:

Charles Reisner

Escritores:

Nat Perrin (story)
Sid Kuller (writer) ...

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

20 junio 1941 (USA)

Género:

Comedia | Musical

Frase comercial:

Howl . . . And Farewell ! Their Last Picture . . . And Their Best !

Plot:

A detective is hired to protect the life of a singer, who has recently inherited a department store, from the store's crooked manager.

Plot Keywords:

Department Store | Musical Number | Italian American | Piano | Private Detective

Comentarios de los usuarios:

THE BIG STORE (1941) **1/2

Reparto

Groucho Marx	...	Wolf J. Flywheel
Chico Marx	...	Ravelli
Harpo Marx	...	Wacky
Tony Martin	...	Tommy Rogers
Virginia Grey	...	Joan Sutton
Margaret Dumont	...	Martha Phelps
Douglass Dumbrille	...	Mr. Grover
William Tannen	...	Fred 'Chris' Sutton
Marion Martin	...	Peggy Arden
Virginia O'Brien	...	Kitty
Henry Armetta	...	Guiseppi
Anna Demetrio	...	Maria
Paul Stanton	...	Arthur Hastings
Russell Hicks	...	George Hastings
Bradley Page	...	Duke

También conocida como:

Tienda de locos (Spain) [es]

Duración:

83 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

Inglés

Color:

Negro y Blanco

Relación de Aspecto:

1.37 : 1

Sonido:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Clasificación:

Australia:G | Finland:S | Germany:6 | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved (certificate #7345)

Compañía:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivialidades:

"The Big Store" is American con artists' jargon for an elaborate type of confidence game. A well-known film example of a "Big Store" con is the one played on Robert Shaw by Robert Redford and Paul Newman in The Sting (1973).

Errores:

Continuidad: When Wolf, Ravelli and Wacky meet Tommy, Wacky has his right arm by his side. In the subsequent shot, when he shakes hands with Tommy, he has his right hand in his pocket.

Citas:

Wolf J. Flywheel: [In "Sing While You Sell" number] Come on, Wacky: Nagasaki!

Conexiones de Película:

Referenced in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Banda de Sonido:

If It's You

THE BIG STORE (1941) **1/2

I watched this for the first time on DVD after having missed it twice on local TV over 10 years ago. Well, as I pointed out in my comments on A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA (1946), I approached THE BIG STORE with little or no expectations, and so I ended up being pleasantly surprised by it.

While certainly no classic (what with the musical numbers being a total drag!), I nonetheless found it quite palatable for what it was; the Marxes were in pretty good form here (as were their regular foils Margaret Dumont and Douglas Dumbrille), and the picture afforded them a fair number of good lines (not familiar to me from reference books like the ones in CASABLANCA) and situations (the scene in Groucho's office already mentioned by Joe, the bedding department scene featuring a typically flustered Henry Armetta, and the hilarious climax in which even Dumbrille gets embroiled in the slapstick). Also, it was nice to see Groucho and Harpo share some scenes as they usually interact more with Chico albeit separately.

In the end, I'd say that I enjoyed this film enough to make me want to purchase the bare-bones (but thankfully low-priced) DVD from Artisan of the Marxes' independently-produced LOVE HAPPY (1949) – which, reportedly sports a pretty satisfactory transfer coming from this company. I had seen the film as a kid on Italian TV but, while I remember individual scenes, I can't recall what my overall opinion of it was!