Monday, May 17, 2010

Marx Mystery: Why the hell isn't “The Incredible Jewel Robbery” on DVD?


I mean, when you think that you can get just about everything else...
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Statistics show that there are now more compilation DVDs called things like "The Best of the Marx Brothers", containing adverts for Creamy Prom, that weird unedited You Bet Your Life pilot where Groucho's got an open-necked shirt on and a crappy documentary with all the clips taken from public domain trailers, than there are people alive on the planet.
With a bit of ingenuity, you can even track down a rough assembly of Deputy Seraph.
But Jewel Robbery, which according to some sources isn't even all that bad, and is of enomrous, not to say enormous importance as the last starring vehicle featuring all three non-Zeppo or that other one Marx Brothers in the same place, at the same time, doing more or less the same thing and looking in roughly the same direction, remains trapped in the archives, probably in a big rusty tin labelled 'Absolutely No Value To Anyone'.
How wrong can you be?
The closest I've come to seeing it is this eight minute condensation issued as a home movie, unfortunately robbed not only of about two thirds of its length but also the original soundtrack where Groucho speaks at the end.
.
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Come on, copyright holders, give us a proper release for this thing. Don't put any extras on it if you don't want to and charge us twenty quid.
We're idiots.
We will buy it.