Hail, Hail, Fredonia (with Reference to the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup)

This is no foolin'.... Fredonia is for real, and I've been there! 

But no "Duck Soup" in sight!

        Duck Soup (1933) is a classic send-up of authoritarianism and starting unnecessary wars and land grabs.  Groucho, whose character name is "Rufus T. Firefly" manages to become the leader of a country named "Freedonia."  Fredonia, Arizona, USA, on the other hand, is near the Utah-Arizona state line.  [Groucho's name is ridiculous in every Marx Brothers movie.]   

     Why the title Duck Soup?!?!?!  Earlier (in 1927), director Leo McCarey had made a two-reel Laurel and Hardy film with the same title - and he used it again. The film's title uses a slang phrase familiar in early 20th century America. It means anything "simple" or "easy", or alternately, a "gullible sucker" or "pushover." The film has become a classic--the ultimate send-up of power-hungry dictators. Groucho supposedly provided the following recipe to explain the title: "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life." (Under the opening credits, four quacking ducks [stylized four Marx Brothers] swim & simmer in a heating kettle.)

    This is one of only two Marx Brothers movies in which Harpo did not play his harp.  The other was Room Service (1938).

     This movie is #5 on the American Film Institute's 100 Funniest Movies.

     It is due to this movie's title and the "Why a duck [viaduct]?" exchange in another Marx Brothers movie, The Cocoanuts (1929; now in public domain) that this blog URL was originally set as "yaduck".