The flies don’t practice law and I don’t walk on the ceiling.

October 20, 1939

The ninth Marx Brothers film, At the Circus, premiered on this date.

The Marx Brothers had been out of favor at MGM since the sudden death in 1936 of their producer and benefactor Irving Thalberg during the production of A Day at the Races. So in the middle of the production of this film, longtime Thalberg rival Louis B. Mayer removed songwriters Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg from this film and reassigned them to the “prestigeMGM production The Wizard of Oz.

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