Singer Tommy Rogers (Tony Martin) has inherited a large department store. He plans to sell the store so he can build a new music conservatory for his friends Wacky (Harpo) and Ravelli (Chico). Mr. Grover (Douglass Dumbrille), the manager of the store, has been cooking the books and plans to off Tommy before he can make the sale. Once Tommy is deceased, his aunt Martha Phelps (Margaret Dumont) will inherit the store. It is Grover's plan to then marry Martha and take control of the store himself.
The Big Store is a 1941 Mystery-Comedy directed by Charles Reisner and starring the Marx Brothers.
Provides examples of:
- The Bluebeard: After taking Tommy's shares of the store, Mr. Grover intends on marrying the fabulously wealthy Martha, who also owns shares of his business, so that he becomes the sole beneficiary of her fortune after he kills her.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In "Sing While You Sell", Flywheel introduces a number of girls showing off fashionable dresses. Flywheel informs the audience that the sequin dress is bright red and that "technicolor is expensive."
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: When you take out the assassination attempts and trophy-husbanding, Mr. Grover is also prone to book cooking.
- The Exotic Detective: That's what you get when Groucho and Harpo play the detectives in your Detective-Comedy.
- Insane Troll Logic: Flywheel makes a case to the patriarch of an Italian family that because he makes 25$ a week and that average child costs 5$ a week, therefor it's "economically impossible" for him and his wife to have 12 kids, and therefore he doesn't have 12 kids. That kind of logic would track if they were renting kids 5$ a week, but that's not what's happening.
- Murphy's Bed: The furniture department is full of holes in the floor and the wall that opens up to show off their furniture. Then Wacky starts messing with the buttons and suddenly all fo the furniture is coming in and out of the walls, trapping and untrapping the store's overwhelmed clientele. Later, Flywheel gets trapped in a typical example of the trope when he sends Ravelli and Wacky to protect Tommy from a pair of gangsters.
- Priceless Ming Vase: Wacky accidentally smashes a shelf full of China trying to evade being arrested for allegedly stealing Martha's purse.
- Reverse Whodunnit: We already know who (and why) tried to whack Tommy Rogers. Rogers owns a large share of the department store and plans on selling it so that it can be replaced with a music conservatory. The store's manager Mr. Grover tries to have Rogers assassinated so that he can pocket the shares before he can sell them. Not only that, but he plans on doing the same thing to Martha after he marries her.
