Editing At the Circus (section)

==Production notes==
[[File:Groucho Marx-Eve Arden in At the Circus trailer.jpg|left|thumb|[[Groucho Marx]] and [[Eve Arden]] in a scene from ''At the Circus'']]
Comedy legend [[Buster Keaton]]'s career had long been on the downside, and he was reduced to working for scale at MGM as a gag man. Keaton's complex and elaborate sight gags did not mesh well with the Marx Brothers' brand of humor, and was sometimes a source of friction between the comedian and the brothers.<ref>{{cite book | title = Groucho, Harpo, Chico and sometimes Zeppo }}</ref> When Groucho called Keaton on the incompatibility of his gags with the Marx Brothers, Keaton responded, "I'm only doing what [[Louis B. Mayer|Mr. Mayer]] asked me to do. ''You'' guys don't need help."<ref>{{cite book | last = Mitchell | first = Glenn | title = The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia | publisher = Reynolds & Hearn | date = 2006 | location = London, UK |page=164 | isbn = 1-905287-11-9}}</ref>

Hundreds of girls applied for the film, with eighteen finally chosen after "rigid tests". They had to be expert ballet dancers, have good singing voices, and they had to be able to prove all this by doing a toe-dance on a cantering bareback horse, while singing in key. Four of the girls were former circus riders. Several of the other girls had ridden in rodeos, either professionally or as amateurs, and the rest had been riding most of their lives.<ref>{{cite news |title=Versatility Required In Marx Bros. Film |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=I38uAAAAIBAJ&pg=5858%2C203920 |work=The Montreal Gazette |location=Montreal |date=Jan 2, 1940 |access-date=19 May 2013}}</ref>

The name of Groucho's character in this film, J. Cheever Loophole, recalls that of real-life financier [[J. Cheever Cowdin]], who had ties to the film industry. In 1936, Cowdin led a group of investors who had lent $750,000 to [[Carl Laemmle]] and his son [[Carl Laemmle, Jr.]], to finance the film ''[[Show Boat (1936 film)|Show Boat]]''. Before the release of the film, the investors demanded repayment, but the Laemmles did not have the funds to pay it back. Because of this, Cowdin was able to take control of the Laemmle's [[Universal Pictures]] studio and served as the company's president until 1946. ''Show Boat'' proved to be a financial success and, had the loan not been called for repayment until after the film's release, the Laemmles would have been able to repay the loan and retain ownership of Universal.

Groucho was aged 48 during the filming of ''At the Circus'', and his hairline had begun to recede. He wore a [[toupee]] in the film and would do the same for the following Marx Brothers film, ''[[Go West (1940 film)|Go West]].''

As a gag, ''At the Circus'' screenwriter [[Irving Brecher]] masqueraded as Groucho in  publicity stills alongside Harpo and Chico. Brecher bore a marked resemblance to Groucho and is nearly unrecognizable in the photos, sporting Groucho's greasepaint mustache, eyebrows and glasses.

Groucho as J. Cheever Loophole was originally introduced in a key scene set in a courtroom which was filmed, but cut from the picture.

One of Groucho's oft-repeated stories about the filming ''At the Circus'' concerned the gorilla skin that an actor wore. On ''[[The Dick Cavett Show]]'' taped June 13, 1969, he said that the actor was too hot inside the skin under the bright lights, and during lunch he went to the  studio commissary and poked several holes in the skin with an icepick. Upon  discovering the holes, the manager of the gorilla skin became extremely angry and took the skin away. MGM scoured southern California for a replacement and finally located an [[orangutan]] skin in San Diego. An orangutan is much smaller than a gorilla, so a shorter actor was hired to fit inside it. Groucho said he received many inquiries about this, and some viewers he happened to meet would ask him why the gorilla was noticeably smaller in the second half of the picture.