Collection on Screen:
Christmas Comedies: Marxism and Its Consequences
December 22, 2025 to January 1, 2026
After reviving our traditional Christmas program in 2024 with our prints of comedies by the Marx Brothers, this year features an expanded edition. As one of the most influential comedy groups of all time, the Marx Bros. also left sidesplitting traces throughout film history beyond their own filmography. We pay tribute to these traces with seven double bills: Each evening sees a "Marxist" masterpiece paired with another film from our collection related to the brothers – sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.
The selection runs the gamut of film history, from the contemporary screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Katherine Hepburn and James Stewart to Marx quotations half a century later in comedies like City Heat (1984) with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and The Freshman (1990) with Marlon Brando. The Beatles also come into play, their feature films directed by Richard Lester bearing strong Marxist traces, as well as our cinephile honorary president Martin Scorsese, who references the Brothers in his satire The King of Comedy (1983) with Jerry Lewis and Robert De Niro. With the classic Casablanca (1942), we end by turning the tables and show the film which influenced the late Marx work A Night in Casablanca (1946). And Howard Hawks's unhinged classic comedy Monkey Business (1952) with Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Marilyn Monroe? We're simply showing it because it has the same title as a Marx masterpiece. Nobody's perfect. (Christoph Huber / Translation: Ted Fendt)
Introductions by Christoph Huber on December 22, 2025
After reviving our traditional Christmas program in 2024 with our prints of comedies by the Marx Brothers, this year features an expanded edition. As one of the most influential comedy groups of all time, the Marx Bros. also left sidesplitting traces throughout film history beyond their own filmography. We pay tribute to these traces with seven double bills: Each evening sees a "Marxist" masterpiece paired with another film from our collection related to the brothers – sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.
The selection runs the gamut of film history, from the contemporary screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Katherine Hepburn and James Stewart to Marx quotations half a century later in comedies like City Heat (1984) with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and The Freshman (1990) with Marlon Brando. The Beatles also come into play, their feature films directed by Richard Lester bearing strong Marxist traces, as well as our cinephile honorary president Martin Scorsese, who references the Brothers in his satire The King of Comedy (1983) with Jerry Lewis and Robert De Niro. With the classic Casablanca (1942), we end by turning the tables and show the film which influenced the late Marx work A Night in Casablanca (1946). And Howard Hawks's unhinged classic comedy Monkey Business (1952) with Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Marilyn Monroe? We're simply showing it because it has the same title as a Marx masterpiece. Nobody's perfect. (Christoph Huber / Translation: Ted Fendt)
Introductions by Christoph Huber on December 22, 2025
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For each series, films are listed in screening order.
