How a UCLA Student Helped Save a Lost Marx Brothers Film
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, in the 1970s, a UCLA student named Steve Stoliar set out to track down a missing piece of Hollywood history. The film was Animal Crackers (1930), one of the early Marx Brothers movies starring Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, and Chico Marx. But because of a copyright issue, the film had disappeared from circulation and was nearly impossible to see.
His effort to track down the film and push for its re-release led him into direct contact with Groucho Marx and the people behind the movie. What followed helped restore a lost chapter in the history of Marx Brothers films.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.0 | This is our American stories. |
| 0:16.8 | And up next, we bring you a story of how one devoted Marks Brothers fan went on to uncover a long-lost Marks Brothers movie. |
| 0:25.6 | Here's Steve Stollier to tell us his story. |
| 0:32.6 | I'm currently a screenwriter and author and also do voiceover work, but I was not always in the business, although I was always interested in show business. |
| 0:50.3 | When I was but a small child in St. Louis, which is where I was born, |
| 0:57.0 | I would see, I Love Lucy episodes where wherever Lucy and Desi would go, |
| 1:05.0 | they seemed to run into famous celebrities, so I assumed that's what Los Angeles or Hollywood was like. |
| 1:11.6 | Our family moved to LA when I was pushing eight years old, and on the airplane that we took, |
| 1:22.6 | Andy Griffith was sitting several rows in front of us, and Red Skelton was sitting in the road directly in front of us. |
| 1:31.3 | And so I thought, wow, it really is like I Love Lucy. There's celebrities everywhere. We haven't even landed in Hollywood, and there's two stars who I know who they are and I watch their shows. This is cool. And Red Skelton was very cool. He kept entertaining my sisters and me the whole flight. For me, he kept one of those little, those pop guns where you push the back and a cork on a string comes out. He had that tucked into his suit |
| 2:03.3 | jacket and every now and again he would just turn around and shoot me with his pop gun. This was, |
| 2:08.9 | of course, before there were any airline safety restrictions. I don't know that you could |
| 2:14.1 | bring a pop gun onto a plane now, but in 1962, there was no problem with it. |
| 2:22.1 | So I had already met two famous people by the time our plane touchdown. As I say, I've always had a |
| 2:30.5 | fascination with famous people, and specifically the Marx Brothers and then within |
| 2:39.2 | that subset is Groucho, my favorite of the Marx Brothers. |
| 2:48.0 | I'm not sure exactly when I became aware of him slash them, but I did have an Uncle Joe |
| 2:56.0 | in St. Louis who was balding, wore glasses, had a mustache, smoked a cigar, and wiggled his |
| 3:03.3 | eyebrows, so that when I did discover the real grouchoo I thought he's just like Uncle Joe. That's |
| 3:10.1 | interesting. And my parents used to quote lines from Marks Brothers movies like being vaccinated |
... |
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