''Deputy Seraph'' was an unfinished pilot for a

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

series in 1959 featuring the

Marx Brothers The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...

Groucho Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit an ...

Chico Chico () means ''small'', ''boy'' or ''child'' in the Spanish language. It is also the nickname for Francisco in the Portuguese language (). Chico may refer to: Places *Chico, California, a city *Chico, Montana, an unincorporated community *Chic ...

, and Harpo. The title was a pun on '' seraph'' (an angelic being) and ''

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...

'', reflecting the Western shows that were popular on TV at the time.

Background

By 1959, the Marx Brothers were still popular but, in their sixties and seventies, were considered too old to make films or a regular television series. They hadn't appeared together in a decade, since their final film '' Love Happy'' in 1949. On March 8, 1959, Chico and Harpo starred together in an episode of '' General Electric Theater'' called "

The Incredible Jewel Robbery "The Incredible Jewel Robbery" was an episode of ''General Electric Theater'', broadcast by CBS on March 8, 1959. It was the first appearance of the three Marx Brothers together in the same scene since ''A Night in Casablanca'' in 1946. They had p ...

". The brothers played Harry and Nick, two inept robbers who try to pull a jewelry heist wearing Groucho Marx disguises. When they are caught and placed in a police lineup, the ''real'' Groucho shows up and is immediately fingered as the thief. Groucho delivers the only line in the otherwise silent program: "We won't talk until we see our lawyer!"

Pilot

Encouraged by the audience reaction, in April the brothers began filming a pilot for ''Deputy Seraph'', a proposed weekly TV series in which Chico and Harpo were angels whose job was to possess people for brief periods of time: bringing two lovers together, exposing a criminal, and so forth. Groucho was cast as a "Deputy Seraph" who would appear in approximately every third show to help undo some of the pandemonium created by his brothers. He would contact " the man upstairs" via

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

: saying, "Phone, please!," would cause a telephone handset to magically appear in his hand. ("I must find out how they do that," Groucho marveled). Phillip Rapp, a lifelong Marx Brothers fan, came up with the concept and served as the show's producer. The pilot story involved a triangle between a young composer, the niece of a compulsive gambler/concert pianist and a sleazy casino owner. A psychiatrist attributes the pianist's strange habit of shooting the piano keys and speaking in an impossible Italian accent to various childhood traumas (these predilections, of course, were Chico trademarks). In the end, the girl and boy get together and the villain gets his comeuppance. Since the Marxes only had to film a fraction of each episode (with other actors/characters impersonating them for most of each show), the concept seemed ideal. The brothers were filmed in Hollywood, while the other scenes would have been shot at

Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London. The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to te ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The pilot was never completed. When doctors discovered that Chico was suffering from

arteriosclerosis Arteriosclerosis is the thickening, hardening, and loss of elasticity of the walls of Artery, arteries. This process gradually restricts the blood flow to one's organs and tissues and can lead to severe health risks brought on by atherosclerosis ...

(he died on October 11, 1961) and thus could not be insured, the producers had to cancel the project.

Availability

All that remains of the pilot episode of ''Deputy Seraph'' is about fifteen minutes of raw, unedited footage, available at the Marx Brothers website.Marxology website
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References

External links

''Deputy Seraph'' on YouTube
{{Marx Brothers Television pilots not picked up as a series Marx Brothers (film series)