Between November 1932 and May 1933, victims of the Great Depression could cheer themselves up a bit by listening to the brilliant wit of Groucho and Chico Marx on the radio posing as attorneys at a small law firm in the States. The firm was called Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel. Groucho was the eponymous Flywheel and there was in fact no Shyster in the firm, Chico playing Flywheel's assistant, Ravelli, to exploit his stage Italian accent. In fact the show was originally entitled Beagle, Shyster and Beagle but following the airing of the first episode a New York attorney called Beagle filed a lawsuit for $300,000 alleging his name had been slandered and that its use was damaging his business and health. He also claimed that people were calling his firm and asking "Is this Mr Beagle?"When he answered "Yes", the caller would say, "How's your partner, Shyster?"The claim by Mr Beagle raised a couple of legal issues. Firstly, slander. Slander is a sub-division of defamation, which broadly is a publication which reduces someone's reputation amongst right-thinking members of society, libel being the written and slander the oral publication (actually as this was a recording I think it was actually technically libel). There is no need to prove intention to besmirch. I doubt Groucho and Chico or the programme makers had ever heard of Mr Beagle. Here however the defamation alleged was somewhat indirect i.e. that the programme had the effect of associating Mr Beagle with a shyster, a corrupt lawyer. I have no idea of Mr Beagle's pre-existing reputation as a lawyer but we must assume it was good or he would not have risked the lawsuit at all (plenty of celebrities have fallen for that trap: Johnathan Aitken, Oscar Wilde to name two). In addition, Mr Beagle might have been claiming any an action known as 'passing off', namely that his law firm had been confused with the one in the programme, to the detriment of his, but if so it is difficult to see how this would work since the radio one was clearly fictional. It is not a defence to say that the defaming statement was a joke but nonetheless it would have been interesting to see the outcome if this had ever come to trial - would right-thinking people (even those who were his clients) really think that Mr Beagle's firm was being portrayed in some way on the programme so as to link in their minds that he had a partner who was a shyster? It seems an action too far, but the producers and sponsors (who were in fact an oil company, Standard Oil) panicked and so Beagle, Shyster and Beagle became Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, a much better name anyway. The next episode explained that Groucho's character had divorced and resorted to his 'maiden name' (perhaps one of Groucho's little jokes in itself).
Groucho was no stranger to intellectual property law. On another occasion he did not back down. When Night at Cassablanca was being completed for release in 1946, Warner Brothers' legal department threatened legal action, presumably this time for breach of copyright, saying that the film's name was too similar to their film Cassablanca released four years earlier, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The wittiest of men sent a typically brilliant Groucho style letter in response: 'You claim that you own Cassablanca and that no one else can use it without your permission. What about ' Warner Brothers'? Do you own that too? Professionally we were brothers long before you were'. Warner Brothers nonetheless persisted and insisted on seeing the storyline. Groucho responded by sending them a plot in which he would be playing 'Bordello, the sweetheart of Humphrey Bogart'. At this point, Warner Brothers gave up.
A blog entry on the Marx Brothers and the law gives me the excuse to mention what I think is one of the cleverest comedy exchanges ever written which is when Groucho and Chico argue about contract terms in Night at the Opera. This contains the immortal punchlines:
Groucho: That's in every contract. that's a sanity clause
Chico: Ah you can't afoola me. There ain't no Santa Claus.
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