Duck Soup

 On this date in 1933, "Duck Soup" was released.

In the "mirror scene," Harpo Marx (as Pinky), dressed as brother Groucho'ss character Rufus T. Firefly, pretends to be Firefly's reflection in a missing mirror, matching his every move—including absurd ones that begin out of sight—to near perfection. In one particularly surreal moment, the two men swap positions, introducing the question of which is the reflection. Eventually, and to their misfortune, brother Chico (in the role of Chicolini), also disguised as Firefly, enters the frame and collides with both of them.

Although its appearance in "Duck Soup" is the best known instance, the concept of the mirror scene did not originate in this film. Harold Lloyd used essentially the same routine in his short "The Marathon" (1919). Max Linder included it in "Seven Years Bad Luck" (1921), where a man's servants have accidentally broken a mirror and attempt to hide the fact by imitating his actions in the mirror's frame. Charlie Chaplin used a similar joke in "The Floorwalker" (1916), though it did not involve a mirror. Harpo himself did a reprise of this scene, dressed in his usual costume, with Lucille Ball also donning the fright wig and trench coat, in the I Love Lucy episode "Lucy and Harpo Marx."

By the time the film was in production, Harpowas the critical darling of the intellectual community, particularly around the famed "Algonquin Round Table" in New York City, made up of several of the notable literati of the day, like Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. Alexander Woollcott considered Harpo to be the greatest pantomime since Charles Chaplin. Always considered to be the most congenial Marx brother, Harpo nevertheless let the attention go to his head, just a bit. One day on the set, Harpo, in an unusually pretentious gesture, asked Herman J. Mankiewicz to explain the motivation of his character (as if Harpo was playing anyone else but Harpo). Mankiewicz replied, "You're a middle-aged Jew who goes around picking up sh**."