Duck Soup is a classic and chaotic 1933 comedy from the Marx Brothers. The bankrupt nation of Freedonia has fallen on hard times, so wealthy widow Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) offers to lend the country $20 million of her paramour, Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) becomes its inept ruler. Trentino (Louis Calhern), ambassador of the neighboring Sylvania, sends two spies, Pinky (Harpo Marx) and Chicolini (Chico Marx) to investigate the changes, but they do little more than cause trouble. Trentino then decides to woo Mrs. Teasdale in an effort to undermine Firefly and perhaps score some of her vast fortune for his own country. His visit leads to the two countries declaring war with the large-scale musical number "We're Going to War." As with every Marx Brothers movie, the outlines of the plot are less important than the comic bits of mayhem from the three iconic characters the brothers brought to all of their collaborations.moreless