Guest Star Groucho Marx
I started watching Firing Line in college, but I had first heard about the Groucho Marx episode around the time that Firing Line was ending in 1999. I believe Buckley was telling a reporter that Groucho was one of his hardest interview subjects and he made it sound more adversarial than the episode seems 45 years later. Groucho and Bill talk TS Eliot, Emerson, Shakespeare, and W. Somerset Maugham. Groucho tells Bill that Maugham's friends called him Willie and then calls Bill Willie the rest of the show.
The backstory is that Groucho agreed to appear on the episode because he and Bill shared a mutual friend, Morrie Ryskind. Ryskind was a writer on a number of Marx Brothers movies in the 1930s and he also wrote for Buckley's National Review during the early years of the magazine. Ryskind talks about both men in his great autobiography, I Shot an Elephant in My Pajamas/the Morrie Ryskind Story...
The Marx that William F. Buckley Jr. loves!
You can't get a straighter straight man than William F. Buckley or a wiser wiseguy than Groucho Marx, so their discussion on Firing Line is worth watching if you like either man. Can you imagine anyone other than Groucho calling. Buckley "Willy"?
There's also a moderator that Groucho teases in the friendly manner Groucho used on George Fenneman during the "You Bet Your Life" television show. In addition, you see a serious side of Groucho, such as his relating the story of his USO tours during WWII and having to perform comedy acts for wards of wounded servicemen who had lost arms and legs.
I've seen Groucho on Cavett and with Murrow (Person-to-Person); This is a worthy addition to the Groucho TV interviews.
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Smart Groucho
Very interesting. A different side of Groucho. He is smarter than I thought and very human. Worthwhile viewing and hearing the repartee between two very different people.
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