Their first independant film was to be Of Thee I Sing, the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize, with Norman McLeod leaving Paramount to direct.
During the winter of 1932-33, Groucho and Chico was also working with Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, a radio series written by NatPerrin and Arthur Sheekman and there was at one time talk of casting them in their radio characters for the new film.
Michael Barson shows that fifteen routines from the Flywheel-radio show were transplanted into the script, with Perrin and Sheekman receiving an "additional dialogue"-credit.
Running some 98 minutes and including some footage not included in its initial release, the documentary provides an excellent portrait of the brothers and their work and serves as an essential supplement to the Warner Bros. box set.
The documentary's strength lies in its wealth of comments from both those who worked with the Marx Brothers (for example, writers Irving Brecher, NatPerrin, Robert Pirosh, and Morrie Ryskind) and the children of the brothers themselves.
Thus both the historical and work contexts are addressed as well as the brothers' personal lives and how they reflected the characters we saw on the screen.
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