If I were any kind of a guy, I’d plug every single episode of the Marx Brothers Council Podcast as they drop, but the naked truth is, I can’t keep up. It’s the only podcast I listen to, but I can’t even keep up with listening to it, I’ve probably only heard 20% of the episodes, much as they fascinate, entertain, and beguile. By now, they’ve had many top Marx Brothers authors and other researchers as guests, and some top Hollywood comedians, script writers and directors as well. Lots of scoops for Marx Brothers fans! I plug the current episode (#65) for its telescoping virtues: the guest is Michael Rowe, who has written for Futurama and Family Guy, and he brings with him not only his own insights into the Marx Brothers’ comedy, but he also brings goodies. By that I mean, a rare audio tape recording from 1967 featuring an interview between famous silent film preservationist/ charlatan Raymond Rohauer and Groucho.
I’m particularly jazzed about this interview because I believe it may be the first one I’ve EVER heard in which Groucho is not “on”. When he did public interviews (e.g., on The Today Show, or something) Groucho invariably felt the need to be in character, to give flip and entertaining answers, and so forth. It was always the character you were hearing. In this interview, you actually to get to hear THE REAL GUY. It’s just as startling and wonderful and welcome to hear as those even rarer audio snatches of Harpo. Valuable stuff, to my mind, not as comedy per se, but as what’s underneath the comedy.
As hosts Noah Diamond and Matthew Coniam (and their guest Rowe) point out, Rohauer is oddly stilted in the interview, seemingly intimidated by the great man, and perhaps a little sketchy in his knowledge. It must be remembered that this interview was conducted before all of the great Marx Brothers books were written, before the Internet, and even before you could easily lay your hands on Marx Brothers movies to watch at all. As a movie exhibitor and fan Rohauer had no doubt seen the Marx Brothers pictures, and knew some basic background, but that would have been the extent of it.
I’ve never so much as mentioned Rohauer’s name on this blog, but as it happens we’re at the centennial of his birth year (I don’t have the exact date) so it seems an ideal time to do a little something on him. Calling him a preservationist as I did above will probably already raise hackles in some quarters. It seems that he was more like an opportunistic exhibitor and distributor (as opposed to a preservationist) of old, mostly silent, movies. Originally from Buffalo, he first surfaces as an employee of L.A.’s Coronet Theatre in the middle of the last century.
He’s best known as a key figure in the Buster Keaton revival. James Mason, who lived in Keaton’s former mansion, found a bunch of old prints of Keaton films on the premises, called Rohauer, and this is how it all started. Rohauer went partners with Keaton and his wife Eleanor to get the films out there; this was around the same time that Chaplin had begun re-releasing his old films with new soundtracks, and Lloyd was releasing his own self-curated compilations, and Robert Youngson released his popular compilation films. Sensing a gold mine in re-energized public interest in silent movies, combined with a certain amount of general uncertainty about matters like copyright (as in, who owned the movies), Rohauer waged an aggressive and apparently dishonest campaign of acquiring films, rebranding them, and copyrighting them on his own behalf. Apparently he did this with a lot of Mack Sennett films, and some of Chaplin’s out-takes and so forth. He has been called a “pirate” and a “free-booter”, since he actually had nothing to do with the movies, but he charged others for access to them, and otherwise made life miserable for other exhibitors, preservationists, scholars, etc. Few have anything good to say about him, although it must be admitted that his self-serving efforts must have resulted in the rescue of some rare old movies. For some entertaining vitriol as well as lots of good information see Brent Reid’s 2018 piece here, which features a William K. Everson article, and links to lots of other good stuff.
Anyway, this Rohauer/Rowe/Groucho/Diamond/Coniam convocation is a terrific listening experience all ’round, and you can hear it here.
And just a reminder: clear your calendar for Marxfest 2024!