Duck Soup is a 1933 American pre-Code musical black comedy film written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby and directed by Leo McCarey. Released by Paramount Pictures on November 17, 1933, it stars the four Marx Brothers and also features Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern, Raquel Torres and Edgar Kennedy. Duck Soup was the last of the five Marx Brothers films released by Paramount Pictures. In the film, Groucho portrays the newly installed president of the fictional country of Freedonia. Zeppo is his secretary, while Chico and Harpo are spies for the neighboring country of Sylvania. Relations between Groucho and the Sylvanian ambassador deteriorate during the film, eventually leading the two countries to war.

Carl Henry Vogt, known professionally as Louis Calhern, was an American stage and screen actor. Well known to fans of film noir for his role as attorney Alonzo Emmerich, the pivotal villain in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for portraying Oliver Wendell Holmes in the film The Magnificent Yankee later that year.