grantss OK, but not great, Marx Brothers movie. Started off well enough. Set up was good, some good one-liners from Groucho and was quite coherent. Middle section had some great sight gags (anything involving the turkey, and Harpo being diagnosed by the doctor, especially). However, from a point it lost coherence and just got silly. Not ridiculously, unwatchably silly, but just mundane and not too funny.Overall, the jokes were weaker than their best, and even Groucho's famous wisecracks seemed weaker and fewer-and-further-between. Performances, given the material, are OK though. Lucille Ball is great in a supporting role, and not just for her acting... Good support too from Ann Miller and Frank Albertson. Certainly not in the same league as A Night At The Opera, but reasonably entertaining nevertheless.

dougdoepke The movie manages a few chuckles, but is not prime material for Marx Bros. fans. One reason is that there's too much conventional logic in what the boys do, unlike their usual wacky comedic logic. Thus, there's little of the usual anarchic assault on well-ordered society that provides larger point to their madcap style. Here the boys are trying to beat the hotel out of a big bill in order to get their stage play produced, and what they do makes perfectly good sense, though done in zany style. I get the feeling that, unlike other Marx movies, any number of good comedic actors could have replaced them to decent effect. Also, journeyman director Seiter fails to bring the zaniness to the kind of madcap boil that marks their best features. For example, the comedy mix tends to keep the boys apart instead of effectively combining them.Nonetheless, the movie has its moments and some good gag lines, along with lively humorous support— MacBride as the dyspeptic hotel manager, Wood as the string bean agent, and Albertson as the boyish playwrite. Unfortunately, Lucille Ball's expert comedic talent goes untapped, but thankfully not her good looks.Looks like the boys miss their home at MGM where their best movies were made. But even second-rate Marx Bros. at RKO still manages some good laughs.

gridoon2018 I think the best summation of "Room Service" in one sentence was done by Pauline Kael in her review: the play (that the script was based on) fits them (the Marx Bros.) like a straightjacket. In other words, instead of the plot serving as a mere stepping stone for the Marxes to unleash their surrealistic madness, they are in service of a plot that leaves them little room for improvisation. But the biggest problem with "Room Service" is the relative lack of truly memorable material: we have the frantic silent eating scene, the turkey hunt, Harpo's response to the doctor's "say ah", the occasional Groucho line ("He's the brains of the organization. And that should give you an idea of the organization"), and that's about it. The last 20 minutes are essentially one long joke (fake "dying") that eventually gets old. Harpo is the liveliest of the brothers here, and he comes off best; Ann Miller is incredibly sweet; Donald MacBride is so loud that you may have to turn down the volume during his scenes. "Room Service" is still worth seeing and even owning, like all Marx Brothers movies, but if you make a list of them it comes near the bottom. ** out of 4.

tavm 30 years ago today, Groucho Marx died at 86, three days after Elvis Presley. For the occasion, I'd thought I'd view some of his movies of which Room Service is one of them. Unlike the others he made with his brothers, this one wasn't especially tailored to their talents since it was originally a Broadway play starring other people. So the action is mostly confined to the hotel and the pace slows down a little bit. Nevertheless, there's still some witty lines and visual humor concerning Harpo that makes this one of the more enjoyable latter day-Marx Brothers films. And there's a wonderful supporting cast with Frank Albertson as the playwright and, especially, Donald MacBride as the hotel manager who keeps exclaiming, "Jumping Butterballs!" Also of note is the fact that a couple of young players named Ann Miller and Lucille Ball appear here long before their established personas. So while not the classic of their five Paramount and first two MGM pictures, this RKO production was nothing the Marx Brothers should be ashamed of.