Room Service

Room Service (1938) is a Hollywood comedy starring the Marx Brothers — watch it online on iFILM. Groucho, Chico, and Harpo made this one at RKO, a one-time detour from their usual Paramount and MGM home, with a young Lucille Ball and Ann Miller in supporting roles years before either became famous.

Theater producer Gordon Miller has run out of money and running room: his cast is camped in hotel rooms he can't pay for, and the house manager is seconds away from throwing everyone out before the play opens. Groucho's Gordon stalls, invents ailments, shuffles guests between floors, and talks his way around every new obstacle with cheerful desperation. Director William A. Seiter adapted John Murray and Allen Boretz's Broadway farce and gave the Brothers a plot tighter than anything they'd worked within before — more constrained than their freewheeling Paramount pictures, but the comedy still lands. Stream Room Service (1938) online on iFILM.