Hello, I Must Be Going

“Love Happy,” the final movie made by the Marx Brothers, hardly ranks with classics like “Duck Soup” and“A Night at the Opera.” But it’s known for two things.

One is that it was the screen debut of Marilyn Monroe. The other is it was one of the first films to feature paidproduct placements. And this led to one of the strangest scenes ever shown in a motion picture.

Initially, the flick was a vehicle for Harpo Marx, the silent, harp-playing brother. But he had to pull in Groucho and Chico to get backing, and their parts were hastily written into the script.

Now entering their dotage, the Marxes had not appeared on screen together since “A Night in Casablanca” in 1946. And the film before that was “The Big Store,” circa 1941. They were far from hot.

Knowing this, United Artists pulled out. But producer Lester Cowen was resourceful. He went to several brands and “solicited paid advertising just to get the movie completed,” according to “The Marx Brothers,” by Mark Bego (Pocket Essentials, 2001).

This resulted in the memorable Times Square chase sequence, in which Harpo scampers on rooftops with neon signs flashing around him. The brands? Kool Cigarettes and Bulova Watches.

But the climactic moment belonged to Mobil Gas. Cornered by his pursuers, Harpo mounts the Mobil winged horse and rides the neon steed into the sky. Stoned-outhippies later cheered that scene.

Back on earth, meanwhile, private eye Groucho is approached by a dark-haired Marilyn Monroe.

“Some men are following me,” she says.

“Really?” Groucho says. “I can’t imagine why.”

But that was the best of it. The movie tanked at the box office, and Groucho turned his attention to “You Bet Your Life,” his popular TV show.

And yet, true Marx fans sob with gratitude when they get a glimpse of “Love Happy” on late-night TV. There were only 13 Marx Brothers films after all, and each one wasspecial in its way.