Love Happy

Private detective Sam Grunion has been searching for the extremely valuable Royal Romanoff diamonds for eleven years, and his investigation leads him to a troupe of struggling performers, led by Mike Johnson, who are trying to put on a musical revue called Love Happy.

Grunion notes that the impoverished young dancers would starve were it not for the sweet, silent Harpo, at Herbert & Herbert, a gourmet food shop that also trafficks in stolen diamonds. Harpo kindly helps ladies with their shopping bags, all the while pilfering their groceries and stuffing them in the pockets of his long trench coat. When the elegant Madame Egelichi arrives, store manager Lefty Throckmorton tells her that "the sardines" have come in. Harpo sneaks into the basement and watches as Lefty lovingly unpacks a sardine can marked with a Maltese cross, and swipes the can from Lefty's pocket, replacing it with an unmarked one. Madame Egelichi, who has gone through eight husbands in three months in her quest for the Romanoff diamonds, is furious when Lefty produces the wrong can. When Lefty remembers seeing Harpo in the basement, she orders him to call the police and offer a $1,000 reward for his capture.

At the theater, meanwhile, unemployed entertainer Faustino the Great asks Mike for a job as a mind-reader, and when Faustino's clever improvisation stops the show's backer, Mr. Lyons), from repossessing the scenery, Mike gratefully hires him. Harpo, who is secretly in love with dancer Maggie Phillips, Mike's girl friend, gives her the sardine can, and she says she will eat them tomorrow. A policeman sees Harpo inside the theater and brings him to Madame Egelichi, who turns Harpo over to her henchmen, Alphonse and Hannibal Zoto. After three days of interrogation, Harpo still refuses to talk, and when he is left alone, he calls Faustino at the theater, using the bike horn he carries in his pocket to communicate. Madame Egelichi listens on the extension as Faustino declares that there are plenty of sardines at the theater, and she goes there at once.

Meanwhile, Mike has just finished telling the troupe that they do not have enough money to open when Madame Egelichi arrives and offers to finance the show. Mike cancels his plans to take Maggie out for her birthday so that he and his new backer can discuss the arrangements. In the alley outside the theater, Harpo, having escaped from Madame Egelichi's suite, finds the diamonds in the sardine can which had been set out for a cat, and puts them in his pocket. When he finds Maggie crying in her dressing room, Harpo takes her to Central Park, where he plays the harp for her and gives her the diamonds as a birthday gift.

On the opening night of the show, Grunion is visited by an agent of the Romanoff family, who threatens to kill him if he does not produce the diamonds in an hour. At the theater, Lefty and the Zoto brothers spy through a window as Maggie puts on the diamond necklace, but Mike asks her not to wear it, promising to buy her an engagement ring instead. As they kiss, Maggie removes the necklace and drops it on the piano strings. The curtain goes up, and when Harpo sees Lefty and the Zoto brothers menacing Maggie, he distracts them with a piece of costume jewelry and leads them up to the roof. Meanwhile, on stage, Faustino plays the piano, and when he strikes the keys forcefully, the diamond necklace flies into the air, drawing the attention of Madame Egelichi, who is watching from the audience. Faustino pockets the diamonds, then rushes to the roof to help Harpo. Madame Egelichi shows up with a gun and demands the necklace, but Faustino gives her the fake diamonds. After tying up Lefty and the Zotos and recovering the real diamonds, Harpo encounters Grunion, who has been hiding on the roof. Harpo drops the diamonds in Grunion's pocket, but then steals them back as Madame Egelichi begins to lead the detective away.

Later, in his office, Grunion comments that Harpo disappeared with the diamonds, never realizing their true value. Grunion interrupts his story to take a phone call from his wife, who turns out to be the former Madame Egelichi.

• Harpo Marx as Harpo
• Chico Marx as Faustino the Great
• Groucho Marx as Detective Sam Grunion
• Vera-Ellen as Maggie Phillips
• Ilona Massey as Madame Egelichi
• Paul Valentine as Mike Johnson
• Marion Hutton as Bunny Dolan
• Leon Belasco as Mr. Lyons
• Melville Cooper as Lefty Throckmorton
• Raymond Burr as Alphonse Zoto
• Bruce Gordon as Hannibal Zoto
• Eric Blore as Mackinaw
• Marilyn Monroe as Grunion's Client
• Otto Waldis as Ivan (uncredited)

The film has a musical score and lyrics by Ann Ronell, with a lively film noirish dancing version of Sadie Thompson featuring Vera-Ellen and former ballet dancer Paul Valentine as one of the United States Marines on a South Pacific Island.

Chico plays a duet on "Gypsy Love Song" with actor-musician Leon Belasco as Mr. Lyons, the owner of the stage props and costumes. Belasco, on violin, starts playing many fancy trills until Chico says, "Look, Mista Lyons, I know you wanna make a good impression — but please, don't play better than me!" Chico played this same tune in the Marx Bros. first film The Cocoanuts 20 years earlier, in 1929.

Love Happy was originally conceived as a solo vehicle for Harpo under the title Diamonds in the Sidewalk,[3] Chico, who was frequently in need of money to pay off gambling debts, also became involved in the project. Once Chico was in, the producers refused to finance the film unless all three Marx Brothers were featured, so Groucho agreed to appear in the film. Love Happy was the final film to be produced by Mary Pickford.[4]

Groucho appears in the film without his usual greasepaint moustache and eyebrows; by this point in his career, he had grown out an actual mustache and no longer saw the greasepaint as dignified. He rarely shares the screen with his brothers (the three never appear together in the same scene), and mainly provides an encompassing narration to explain things in the film when the necessary sequences for a coherent narrative were unavailable.[4] Groucho avoided mentioning the film at all in his autobiography, Groucho and Me (1959), apparently at that time considering A Night in Casablanca (1946) their last film together. He did acknowledge the film in interviews for The Marx Brothers Scrapbook (1974) and in his later book, The Groucho Phile: An Illustrated Life (1976). Because of the encapsulated nature of Groucho's scenes, it had long been assumed that his presence in the film was an afterthought. However, recently discovered letters from Groucho show that he was asked to be part of the project from its earliest stages in 1946–47.[4]

The production ran out of money during shooting, so a unique form of product placement (rare for the time) was featured in a rooftop chase around advertising billboards.[4]

Although shooting began in July 1948, the film was not released generally until March 3, 1950. The film's stated copyright is 1949, which is when it was shown in San Francisco on October 12. Originally released at 91 minutes, available non-theatrical prints run 85 minutes and contain some alternate footage with some brief snippets excised from some scenes and some gags completely eliminated. In 2015, Olive Films made the original unedited 91 minute theatrical print available on DVD.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Love Happy

• Love Happy at IMDb
• Love Happy at AllMovie
• Love Happy at the TCM Movie Database
• Love Happy at Rotten Tomatoes