Harpo speaks! New recordings reveal mute Marx brother chatting with audience

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The comedy legend, who adopted his silent persona because of stage nerves, did occasionally address his audience, as revealed by a new archive release Groucho was the cigar-chomping wit with the improbable moustache, Chico was the piano-playing rustic grifter and Zeppo played the straight man and the lover. But as any Marx Brothers fan knows, Harpo was the pantomime, who cracked up the audience without saying a word, dressed in his tattered raincoat and curly wig. His persona was childlike and mischievous but also musical – he let his harp and his taxi horn do the talking. But now we get to see, or rather hear, a new side to Harpo Marx. A very special recording has been unearthed of Harpo in 1964 speaking to an audience, in character. Arthur “Harpo” Marx was born Adolph Marx in New York in 1888. He started performing with his brothers in 1910, and his nickname probably came about because of his instrument of choice – he was an entirely self-taught musician. By 1915, due to his nerves a...
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Somnium review – dream-injection sci-fi plot follows in dodgy-clinic tracks of The Substance

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Racheal Cain’s debut feature feels derivative, with plotlines that are forced together and cartoonish reductions that sell its characters short

Hard on the heels of The Substance comes another film about a dodgy Los Angeles experimental clinic and showbiz obsession – only this medical outfit, Somnium, is a shonky mind-fixing operation à la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Wannabe actor Gemma (Chloë Levine) lands a “sleep-sitting” job at the firm, watching over patients in pods who are hoping to improve their lives by having helpful dreams injected into their subconsciouses. Already working the audition circuit hard, she doesn’t appear to need that kind of assistance – but flashbacks to the idyllic relationship she ditched in Georgia hint at a festering inner wound.

Appealing though its crisp sci-fi premise makes it, Racheal Cain’s debut feature nonetheless feels as if it has been directly imprinted with far too many secondhand pop-cultural memories: some decaying Eternal Sunshine relationship detritus here, a mysterious producer svengali (Johnathon Schaech) and a transformative audition-room scene straight from Mulholland Drive over there. Even one of the key performances feels derivative: Will Peltz as Noah, Gemma’s creepy, aviator-specs colleague, xeroxes Cillian Murphy’s supercilious distaste.

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