“All the women here are named Angela. And all the men are named George.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” – Jack Okey and Susan Fleming

This kind of laissez-faire, anything-goes mentality is one of the obvious strengths of Million Dollar Legs‘ comic tableau. There need not be a given rationale behind what it does and with this brand of laxity, there is an empowerment to do anything it so desires.

Thus, the narrative opens in a far-off Eastern European land called Klopstokia. Their chief exports, imports, and inhabitants are goats and nuts! If it’s not evident already the movie looks like it might be an equally oddball companion piece to Duck Soup.

It’s hard not to see its shared space and that’s mostly on a perfunctory level (and because of the fact Susan Fleming married Harpo Marx). One must also note it came first to precede the L.A. Olympics, though it’s not too hard to believe the Mankiewicz brothers did conceive the movie as a vehicle for the crown princes of anarchy.

Since this is not the case, Million Dollar Legs is ripe for rediscovery propping up some other stars who are sometimes less remembered. They didn’t get them, but Herman and Joseph working with director Edward F. Cline wrangled together an absurdist universe for the likes of Jack Okey. He might be most famous to modern audiences for parodying Mussolini in Chaplin’s The Great Dictator.

Here he’s front and center, an itinerant brush salesman, who happens upon the nation on business only to fall head over heels for the country and its people — one person in particular — her name is, of course, Angela (Susan Marx). They brush each other off rather seductively as her kid brother (Dickie Moore), a begrudging and silent cupid, does his best to keep them apart.

But she also has a connection to the country’s fearless leader. Her father is the President (and also W.C. Fields) with his hat and a dictaphone perfect for bad-mouthing his subordinates on his daily carriage ride to the office. He’s the broadest, most formidable name in the movie.

He makes a daily show of his brawn arm-wrestling his sneezing cabinet including such hoodwinked bumblers as Hugh Herbert and Billy Gilbert. The President is oblivious to their conspiratorial endeavors because frankly, even with their secret cache of spies, they hardly seem likely to hurt a fly. One of their spies out in the field, no less, is a pantomiming, cross-eyed man in black portrayed by Ben Turpin.

However, despite their impotence, they agree to call upon the woman who men can’t resist — the ultimate vamp and a caricature of the Dietrich archetype — Mata Macree (Lyda Roberti). What are her plans? To seduce the entire Klopstokia Olympic team in their bid for the 1932 Olympics! It has no import aside from meeting narrative expectations.

So everyone piles onto the ocean liner, including the President, Migg, and his best girl Angela. The movie’s apex might come when W.C. Fields on one side and his cabinet on the other start yanking the wall back and forth as Okey tries to woo his girl with the gibberish national anthem. It’s delightfully absurd both in the immediate visuals and the auditory accompaniment.

The Olympics aren’t much different with the Klopstokian contingent in a shambles before Angela rallies them jumping from the high dive to have it out with the duplicitous mata hari once and for all. Then, her father shows off his feats of strength in the weightlifting competition against his rival cabinet member. All pretense of logic is gone. Just go with it. Take it for what it is.

The final baton is taken up by the speedy Major-Domo who zips past the competition as a last-second entry coming from behind on the urging of Angela on a motorbike.  Truthfully, I’m still trying to figure out who owned the pair of million-dollar legs. For my money, it’s the galloping Major-Domo

What’s not up for contention is Million Dollar Legs as an intriguing vessel of comedy functioning as a kind of cultural time capsule. Not only does it help chart the famed Mankiewicz brothers before the heights of their future successes, it’s also a contemporary commemoration of the L.A. Olympics. Marx Brothers or not, it might just be worth a look as a historical curio.

3.5/ Stars