The Marx Brothers could be just as nutty off camera as on. A regular target of their pranks was Thalberg, who had the habit of keeping even the biggest stars waiting for appointments. Finding themselves barred from the producer's office one day, the three puffed on cigars and blew the smoke under his door until they choked him out of the room. Another time, they barricaded his door with office furniture so he couldn't get out. And once, when he left a meeting with them to attend to other business, he returned to find them sitting in front of his fireplace - nude, according to some versions of the story - roasting potatoes.

The film's director was the very serious, very conservative Sam Wood, a man who by most accounts had little or no sense of humor. Allan Jones remembered him as "a disagreeable guy, very insecure." Jones also said Wood responded to actors' questions by saying, "I don't know, I don't know. Just do it again." Wood, who was against improvisation and ad-libbing, would shoot as many as 20 takes of each scene, a method the Marx Brothers found irritating and inhibiting. Jones believed he shot so many takes because he wasn't really sure which was the best until he looked at the day's work.

Sam Wood's stuffiness made him the perfect Marx target. The director had an ulcer, so he started each day with a big glass of milk. The brothers began to have it delivered to him in a baby bottle - a joke Wood never got. He also imposed a fine for being late to the set, which Groucho was in favor of at first. But Chico and Harpo nailed their brother's garage door shut, making him the first to pay the $50 penalty. Then the three turned the penalty into a game, betting on who would be the next to be fined. Wood eventually abandoned the idea.

Despite all the games and pranks, Kitty Carlisle said the atmosphere on the set was "deadly earnest." She recalled how Groucho would come up to her from time to time, try out a line, and ask, "Is this funny?" If she said "no," he would "go away absolutely crushed and try it out on everyone else in the cast." On the other hand, Chico, she said, was always off in a back room playing cards. And Harpo would work very diligently until about 11 a.m. and then plop himself down on the nearest piece of furniture and begin yelling, "Lunchie! Lunchie!"

by Rob Nixon