For questions about Freedonia Marxonia activities, contact Cindy Yochym at 1891 Fredonia Opera House is a member-supported not-for-profit organization located in Village Hall in downtown Fredonia. Freedonia Marxonia is supported through the Hahn Family Freedonia Marxonia Fund of the Fredonia College Foundation.
#Fredonia marx brothers free#
All activities are free and open to the public. The exhibit, “Creative Contemporaries of the Marx Brothers,” runs through Oct. 7 at noon in the Garden at Reed, an informal talk, “A Career as a Playwright, ” will be given by Fredonia alumnus and Marx Brothers fan Tom Dudzick. That evening at 7 p.m., the 1930 film “Animal Crackers ” will be shown in G24 McEwen Hall. with a reception in Reed Library at The State University of New York at Fredonia. This event is being presented as part of the annual Freedonia Marxonia celebration, which was created in 1987 by Fredonia students to commemorate the connection between Fredonia and “Freedonia.”įreedonia Marxonia opens Thursday, Oct. Audience members at the film will have a chance to win one of several door prizes.
This was the Marx Brothers’ fifth film in a five-picture contract with Paramount Studios and was the last to feature all four brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo.Īdmission to the event is FREE. 5 on the AFI list of the 100 funniest American films of all time. 85 on the list of the 100 Greatest American Movies by the American Film Institute (AFI) in 1998. Many years later, dated photographs surfaced showing the mayor with Paramount Pictures executives before the “Duck Soup” episode began to unravel, thus hinting that the entire matter may have been concocted by the film’s promoters as a publicity stunt. After all, they reasoned, their film’s box-office appeal was being hurt by its association with this small Western New York community. The first Marx Brothers/Thalberg film was A Night at the Opera (1935), a satire on the world of opera, where the brothers help two young singers in love by throwing a production of Il Trovatore into chaos. The Marx Brothers' response was, 'Change the name of your town, it's hurting our picture. In their own cynical style, the Marx Brothers suggested that the mayor could resolve the problem simply by changing the name of his town. Shortly before this film premiered, the city of Fredonia, New York, complained about the use of its name with an additional 'e'. As documented in Time magazine, Mayor Hickey complained bitterly that “Duck Soup” – with its reference to a mythical corrupt country was besmirching the reputation of his fine village. There’s no lack of evidence, however, of the fracas between Fredonia’s mayor at the time, Harold Hickey, and the Marx Brothers over the use of the similarly pronounced names. According to local lore, the Marx Brothers actually performed at Fredonia’s Grand Opera House, (today the 1891 Fredonia Opera House) in between engagements in Buffalo and Cleveland, although documentation of that appearance has never been found.
The 1933 classic takes place in Freedonia, a fictional country run by a leader played by Groucho. Even though it was a minor disappointment when released, “Duck Soup” today is regarded as one of the Marx Brothers’ best pictures.