When the Marx Brothers were banished for their latest transgression in 1922, they simply moved on to bigger success at something else.

Blacklisting was a common tactic in the monopolistic world of vaudeville. The Marx Brothers on more than one occasion upset the moguls who ran the business. Their big success in vaudeville was always a little tenuous. The act was her dream and they were in no position to change her plan. Minnie’s boys were all quick to realize that she was like a force of nature. It never occurred to Herbert that he had a choice. Minnie informed her youngest, Herbert that he was now part of the act and Zeppo replaced Gummo as the fourth Marx Brother. They didn’t miss a beat when Milton left in 1918, preferring World War I to life on America’s vaudeville stages. Within a couple of years the Four Marx Brothers were among the most popular and successful acts in vaudeville. Leonard had been working as a piano player and in a few undistinguished vaudeville acts of his own. The family act was solidified when Minnie’s oldest son Leonard – better known as Chico – was added to the fold in 1912. Milton and Adolph – later known as Gummo and Harpo – followed Julius in 19. His mother Minnie, soon to be a legendary stage mother, was sufficiently inspired by her son’s early success to push the rest of her considerable brood onto the stage. Groucho – still Julius at the time – made his show business debut in the summer of 1905. By that point the Marx Brothers – individually and collectively – had been working on vaudeville and Broadway stages for twenty years. Sound films had been in development almost since the invention of motion pictures, and it was apparent by 1925 that it was just a matter of time before one of the many systems finally worked well enough to put the idea over. The Four Marx Brothers could-and three of them would. But the studios that did embrace sound movies quickly began to look for actors who could speak.

It was a slow death, as the other studios were not all quick to adapt. The silent film as an art form essentially died that evening. talking motion picture adaptation of the hit Broadway play, The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, redefined the movie business overnight. That evening at Warners’ Theatre in Times Square, the premiere of the Warner Bros. While the Marx Brothers were onstage performing The Cocoanuts at the Lyceum Theatre in Rochester, New York, on October 6, 1927, history was being made 330 miles away in New York City. This essay was first published in the 2016 Universal Pictures Home Entertainment release, The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection (Restored Blu-ray Edition.) It also appears in the 2017 UK edition of the release, The 4 Marx Brothers at Paramount.

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