Plot
The movie opens with news that Phelps Department store owner Hiram Phelps has died, leaving half-ownership in the business to his protege, singer Tommy Rogers. The other half is owned by Phelps' sister, Martha (Margaret Dumont). Rogers knows nothing about running a department store, so he plans to sell his interest in the store and use the money to fund music education. Store manager Grover (Douglas Dumbrille) wants to kill Rogers before he can sell his share, seduce Martha into a sham marriage, then kill her to become sole owner. Martha is highly suspicious, worried about Tommy's safety lest anyone suspect her of foul play to take over the store. Against Grover's wishes she hires Wolf J. Flywheel (Groucho Marx) as a floorwalker and bodyguard. Between Tommy wooing his sweetheart and Groucho romancing Mrs. Phelps, the brothers thwart the plot to place a gun in a photographer's camera.
The film has two extended scenes, one of them in the store's bed department, which has all kinds of novel beds that come out of the walls. An Italian family walks in with 12 children, and Groucho asks the father (Henry Armetta) what other hobbies he has got. Six of the kids promptly disappear in a set of bunk beds. While the father pleads for the return of his children, three more large families, a Swedish one with a dozen blond children, another with Chinese children and finally Native American children, arrive, and soon all is chaos.
The second lengthy scene takes place near the end of the film: Groucho, Chico and Harpo escape their pursuers during a madcap chase through the entire store, using the elevator, a staircase, chandeliers, roller skates, a mail chute and a bicycle. This chase involves an unusual amount of Mack Sennett-type slapstick stunts for a Marx Brothers movie.
There is one gag which breaks the fourth wall, during the "Sing While You Sell" sequence: while Groucho is narrating a fashion show, he asides "This is a bright red dress, but Technicolor is so expensive." Later in the film, Groucho breaks the fourth wall again when he comments "I told you in the first reel was a crook."
Read more about this topic: The Big Store
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