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Artist Salvador Dalí visited
Hollywood in 1937. With him he brought his wife Gala and an idea for a
film he wished to create with the Marx Brothers. As a token of his
esteem for the one with the "marvelous wig," he also brought a harp
strung with barbed wire. The film, entitled Giraffes on
Horseback Salads,
was never made, reportedly because MGM, which had an exclusive contract
with the Marx Brothers, felt it was too surreal. The script consists
of 22 pages original blue ribbon typescript in French with handwritten
ink corrections and is owned by the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí in
Figueres, Spain. Apart from roles for the Marx Brothers, the script
includes a character called the Surrealist woman (to be played by Gala)
and a Spanish businessman named Jimmy.
The Surrealist woman is lying
in the middle of a great bed, sixty feet long, with the rest of the
guests seated around each side. Along the bed as decorations are a
group of dwarfs caught by Harpo. Each is supported on a crystal base,
decorated with climbing flowers. The dwarfs stay as still as statues,
holding lighted candelabras and change their positions every few
minutes. While love tears at Jimmy's heart, Groucho tries to crack a
nut on the bald head of the dwarf in front of him. The dwarf, far from
looking surprised, smiles at Groucho in the most amiable way possible.
Suddenly in the middle of dinner, thunder and lightning begin inside
the room. A squall of wind blows the things over on the table and
brings in a whirl of dry leaves, which stick to everything. As Groucho
opens his umbrella, it begins to rain slowly. Although the guests show
surprise, they try for a time to continue their meal, which is,
however, brought to an end by showers of rain. In panic, the guests
rush in all directions, while from the hall a torrent of waters washes
in, bringing with it all sorts of debris, including a drowned ox. A
shepherd makes a desperate effort to collect his flock of sheep, which
climb up on the sofas and the bed in an effort to avoid being carried
away by the water. A cradle is carried in on the flood containing a
baby crying piteously, followed by the mother, hair streaming behind
her. The Surrealist woman
crosses several rooms as the rain is falling more and more heavily but
stops in front of a door and hesitates. She goes in, followed by Jimmy,
who has never left her side. On the other side of the door, there is no
more rain and everything changes. It is the childhood room of the
Surrealist woman where by her orders nothing has been touched since she
was ten. Overcome by emotions, she sits down in front of a mirror at a
child's table. Meanwhile, the Marx Brothers announce that a great fête
is going to take place. For this, large preparations have to be made.
Four acres of desert are cleared of cacti and of all vegatation and
flattened out like a tennis court. The undergrowth that is cleared away
is piled around the field to make a barrier, behind which stands are
erected for spectators. There is a competition for the person who can
ride a bicycle the slowest with a stone balanced on his head. All the
participants have to grow beards. In the middle is a tower in the form
of a boat's prow to be used as a judge's box. Before the spectacle
begins, the vegetation around the fields is set alight. This prevents
the spectators in the stands from seeing anything at all. From the top
of the tower the sight is wonderful, with columns of smoke going up
vertically, surrounding hundrds of cyclists - each balancing a rock on
his head - threading their way with the sun setting behind. In the
tower, Harpo is playing his harp ecstatically, like a modern Nero. By
his side, his back to the spectacle, Groucho is lying, smoking lazily.
Nearby, the Surrealist woman and Jimmy watch the spectacle, lying side
by side. Behind them, Chico, dressed in a diving suit, accompanies
Harpo on the piano. Scattered across the gangway leading to the tower,
an orchestra plays the theme song with Wagnerian intensity as the sun
sinks under the horizon.
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